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PS3 YLOD- Question on new HDD

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
So my PS3 is gone. :(

My friend is going to let me borrow his for the summer, and possibly sell it to me (he's not sure yet). Can I simply put my HDD in his and keep all my photos/videos/music, or do I have to do a complete format? (I'm not worried about my games, but I am wondering about my game saves as well).
 

deepbrown

Member
chubigans said:
So my PS3 is gone. :(

My friend is going to let me borrow his for the summer, and possibly sell it to me (he's not sure yet). Can I simply put my HDD in his and keep all my photos/videos/music, or do I have to do a complete format? (I'm not worried about my games, but I am wondering about my game saves as well).
You've lost everything. Sorry. PS3 is sh*t like that. I'm buying an external HDD to back up my second PS3. Asking for advice on my choice here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=361974 All help is appreciated :)
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Nooo! *cries*

So if I got my PS3 fixed, I would still need to format it once I got it back right?

My PS3 simply shut off as it was charging one of my controllers; it turns green, a quick flash of yellow, and then red blinking light.
 

PistolGrip

sex vacation in Guam
I think you may be able to use another computer to grab data from your HDD. PS3 will want to format your new drive when it sees it so be careful....
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
PistolGrip said:
I think you may be able to use another computer to grab data from your HDD. PS3 will want to format your new drive when it sees it so be careful....
Any ideas on how to do that?
 

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
chubigans said:
So my PS3 is gone. :(

My friend is going to let me borrow his for the summer, and possibly sell it to me (he's not sure yet). Can I simply put my HDD in his and keep all my photos/videos/music, or do I have to do a complete format? (I'm not worried about my games, but I am wondering about my game saves as well).

if you did a backup copy of your old HDD on external HDD before the YLOD ( you should do that at least once every month ) then you can restore everything you have .

if not ..then I am sorry :(


deepbrown said:
You've lost everything. Sorry. PS3 is sh*t like that.

it's for piracy , I asked Sony dealer store manager about that , his answer was it's anti-piracy system , without it pirates will fill cheap SATA HDD with games and sell or share them
 

deepbrown

Member
chubigans said:
Nooo! *cries*

So if I got my PS3 fixed, I would still need to format it once I got it back right?

My PS3 simply shut off as it was charging one of my controllers; it turns green, a quick flash of yellow, and then red blinking light.
here you have an option. IF your PS3 can be fixed (they would only offer replacement for me) then you should ask to keep your HDD back, or even ask them to back it up (or some such) and put it back into your fixed PS3. You won't need to reformat then as it's the same PS3 code.
 

deepbrown

Member
Totobeni said:
if you did a backup copy of your old HDD on external HDD before the YLOD ( you should do that at least once every month ) then you can restore everything you have .

if not ..then I am sorry :(

You can't restore everything you have on a new PS3. Backup doesn't copy DL games - you have to download them again.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
DarkUSS said:
For the record, what version was your deceased PS3?
First gen 20GB PS3.

here you have an option. IF your PS3 can be fixed (they would only offer replacement for me) then you should ask to keep your HDD back, or even ask them to back it up (or some such) and put it back into your fixed PS3. You won't need to reformat then as it's the same PS3 code.

I do have a warranty, but it's with Wal-Mart, so I have no idea what's going to happen to it once I send it off to them. :\
 
Sorry for your loss, chubigans. Hopefully, you'll get the same unit back, and you can keep your data.

I think everyone can learn a lesson from this though. Back up your hard drives, kids!
 

Oni Jazar

Member
Sony needs to implement a backup system that only backs up game saves. I have a 320 Gb drive and don't want to buy another drive (+ enclosure) of the same size to back up crap I don't need when a 1Gb memstick should be enough for compressed saves.

I know you can copy individually but a) that's a pain and b) a lot of saves are locked.
 

tinfoilhatman

all of my posts are my avatar
I'm sorry but storing all your shit on the PS3 itself is just dumb, it's a game console.

Buy a couple cheap huge drives and leave that crap on your PC where it belongs in a RAID one configuration and then stream it to all your devices.

Bottom line Small\Laptop hard drives are expensive and unreliable
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
tinfoilhatman said:
I'm sorry but storing all your shit on the PS3 itself is just dumb, it's a game console.

Buy a couple cheap huge drives and leave that crap on your PC where it belongs in a RAID one configuration and then stream it to all your devices.

Bottom line Small\Laptop hard drives are expensive and unreliable
Well I have most of it on my PC, some stuff is gone, but it's not too big a deal. Just a pain in the ass obviously. :(
 
I was wondering this myself. I just lost my 60gb ps3 and I opted to send it in for repairs for $150. When I talked to Sony I told them that I swapped my hdd and I got rid of the original. They told me to send it in without the hdd and that I'd get my exact model back.

So if thats true I won't have to reformat my hdd right? Maybe you should go that route chubs.
 

navanman

Crown Prince of Custom Firmware
chubigans said:
Well I have most of it on my PC, some stuff is gone, but it's not too big a deal. Just a pain in the ass obviously. :(

AFAIK, if you put your PS3 HDD in another PS3 system, it will keep all your pictures and videos and game saves but your PSN downloaded games will not work as the your account hasn't been activated to the replacement PS3.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Choke on the Magic said:
I was wondering this myself. I just lost my 60gb ps3 and I opted to send it in for repairs for $150. When I talked to Sony I told them that I swapped my hdd and I got rid of the original. They told me to send it in without the hdd and that I'd get my exact model back.

So if thats true I won't have to reformat my hdd right? Maybe you should go that route chubs.
Well my Sony warranty is up but I bought a $30 Wal-Mart warranty, and that's still good. The only thing is they're the ones who will fix it...so I have no idea what they're going to do.
 

deepbrown

Member
Choke on the Magic said:
I was wondering this myself. I just lost my 60gb ps3 and I opted to send it in for repairs for $150. When I talked to Sony I told them that I swapped my hdd and I got rid of the original. They told me to send it in without the hdd and that I'd get my exact model back.

So if thats true I won't have to reformat my hdd right? Maybe you should go that route chubs.
Same "model" as in the very same console? If that's the case then you will keep your data. If it's the same model but a new console, then no, sorry.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
navanman said:
AFAIK, if you put your PS3 HDD in another PS3 system, it will keep all your pictures and videos and game saves but your PSN downloaded games will not work as the your account hasn't been activated to the replacement PS3.
Seriously? This is exactly what I was hoping for. Hooray! :D
 

deepbrown

Member
chubigans said:
Well my Sony warranty is up but I bought a $30 Wal-Mart warranty, and that's still good. The only thing is they're the ones who will fix it...so I have no idea what they're going to do.
My Sony warranty was well up, but they gave me a new one for free. In the UK we have laws about things lasting as long as they are expected to.
 

deepbrown

Member
navanman said:
AFAIK, if you put your PS3 HDD in another PS3 system, it will keep all your pictures and videos and game saves but your PSN downloaded games will not work as the your account hasn't been activated to the replacement PS3.
That's not what I was told by anyone. I was told that it would automatically reformat the drive. You can't keep your game saves especially.
 
chubigans said:
Well my Sony warranty is up but I bought a $30 Wal-Mart warranty, and that's still good. The only thing is they're the ones who will fix it...so I have no idea what they're going to do.


Walmart repairs Ps3's. You should definitely ask what they do exactly first. I just don't trust Walmart.
 
deepbrown said:
Same "model" as in the very same console? If that's the case then you will keep your data. If it's the same model but a new console, then no, sorry.


I'm assuming very same console. They don't make 60gb anymore so it would have to be mine. Unless they have 60gb's laying around.
 

Oni Jazar

Member
deepbrown said:
That's not what I was told by anyone. I was told that it would automatically reformat the drive. You can't keep your game saves especially.

Same here. I heard putting in a PS3 HD into another PS3 will be formatted
 
Choke on the Magic said:
Walmart repairs Ps3's. You should definitely ask what they do exactly first. I just don't trust Walmart.


And you'd probably want to call the corporate office to get the info. I'm sure the employees in-store aren't given the full run down on what happens with the console.
 

navanman

Crown Prince of Custom Firmware
Meh!!
I looked it up alright and it looks like it formats whatever new HDD you put in the replacement PS3.
Kinda sucky..
 
tinfoilhatman said:
I'm sorry but storing all your shit on the PS3 itself is just dumb, it's a game console.

Buy a couple cheap huge drives and leave that crap on your PC where it belongs in a RAID one configuration and then stream it to all your devices.

Meh.

First off, the PS3 is a media player. How can you say is it "just dumb" to have media on the PS3, which is designed to be a media player, and designed to hook right up to your HDTV and sound system, yet in the same breath say that all that stuff "belongs" on a PC?

Streaming stuff wirelessly, especially HQ HD content, sucks. Some people don't want to do a wired connection either. I have a wired network connection to my PS3, and I still hardly ever use streaming.

My PC is usually in use for it's main purpose as a PC and Photoshop workstation, or it's asleep to save electricity anyway. Some people actually care about power usage in their homes, and don't want to have to have two energy-sucking devices fully powered up, when only one can do the job just fine.

I like having a loaded 500GB internal HDD in my PS3. If you use Remote Play on the PSP a lot like I do, it's awesome to have as much stuff as possible on the internal drive. You just wake up the PS3 via Remote Play, and it starts streaming.

There's lots of reasons why people chose to keep data on the PS3. Saying it's "just dumb" and not considering why reasonable people might do it is actually "just dumb," and it doesn't help anybody in this thread.

tinfoilhatman said:
Bottom line Small\Laptop hard drives are expensive and unreliable

I paid $82 shipped for my 500GB drive in my PS3. Not that expensive.

I also have a secondary USB drive for media that gets bumped from the PS3 that I want to keep handy, and another for backing up the internal drive. Those use regular 3.5" drives, are massive, and they were cheap.
 

deepbrown

Member
Choke on the Magic said:
I'm assuming very same console. They don't make 60gb anymore so it would have to be mine. Unless they have 60gb's laying around.
Of course they do. You send in yours, the dont throw it away do they. They'll send you a refurbished 60GB model.
 
The only option you have (which is what I did) is to get your solders reflowed. You can either send it off to have this done, or do it yourself with a heatgun (although some have reported success with a hairdryer, just don't expect it to last long at all). This will at least get your triple back into a state where you can back it up. That's what I just went through.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Valkyr Junkie said:
The only option you have (which is what I did) is to get your solders reflowed. You can either send it off to have this done, or do it yourself with a heatgun (although some have reported success with a hairdryer, just don't expect it to last long at all). This will at least get your triple back into a state where you can back it up. That's what I just went through.
Where can I get some more info on this?
 
Pristine_Condition said:
Meh.

First off, the PS3 is a media player. How can you say is it "just dumb" to have media on the PS3, which is designed to be a media player, and designed to hook right up to your HDTV and sound system, yet in the same breath say that all that stuff "belongs" on a PC?

Streaming stuff wirelessly, especially HQ HD content, sucks. Some people don't want to do a wired connection either. I have a wired network connection to my PS3, and I still hardly ever use streaming.

My PC is usually in use for it's main purpose as a PC and Photoshop workstation, or it's asleep to save electricity anyway. Some people actually care about power usage in their homes, and don't want to have to have two energy-sucking devices fully powered up, when only one can do the job just fine.

I like having a loaded 500GB internal HDD in my PS3. If you use Remote Play on the PSP a lot like I do, it's awesome to have as much stuff as possible on the internal drive. You just wake up the PS3 via Remote Play, and it starts streaming.

There's lots of reasons why people chose to keep data on the PS3. Saying it's "just dumb" and not considering why reasonable people might do it is actually "just dumb," and it doesn't help anybody in this thread.

Given the reliability of hard drives, I'd say it's dumb not to have a backup of anything that you don't want to lose if the hard drive crashes. No storage medium is 100%, so if the data is valuable to you, keep it in 2 places.

I've had countless hard drives from virtually all manufacturers die on me anywhere from 2-3 months to several years later.

Now, given that it sounds like a format is required if your PS3 dies, I'd say it is a huge risk to store anything you don't want to lose exclusively on the PS3.
 
deepbrown said:
Of course they do. You send in yours, the dont throw it away do they. They'll send you a refurbished 60GB model.

Good point. I'm going to call and see if I can get more info. I'm going to back up what I can on my PC for now.
 

anddo0

Member
Damn that sucks. My launch PS3 died around this time last year (June). I haven't backed my data in while, guess I should.
 
deepbrown said:
That's not what I was told by anyone. I was told that it would automatically reformat the drive. You can't keep your game saves especially.

This is FACT. You put your PS3 hard drive into another PS3 and it will immediately want to format the drive. Even if you back up your info it will not recognize it since you are trying to restore that data on a different PS3. Try to get your current PS3 repaired and not replaced, unless game saves aren't important to you.
 
gregor7777 said:
Given the reliability of hard drives, I'd say it's dumb not to have a backup of anything that you don't want to lose if the hard drive crashes. No storage medium is 100%, so if the data is valuable to you, keep it in 2 places.

I've had countless hard drives from virtually all manufacturers die on me anywhere from 2-3 months to several years later.

Now, given that it sounds like a format is required if your PS3 dies, I'd say it is a huge risk to store anything you don't want to lose exclusively on the PS3.

Um, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything I said, but...

Pristine_Condition said:
I also have a secondary USB drive for media that gets bumped from the PS3 that I want to keep handy, and another for backing up the internal drive. Those use regular 3.5" drives, are massive, and they were cheap.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
What data does the PS3 backup? It it just save data and PSN/DLC? Or do I need to delete all the installs? I recall deleting over 80GB's of data this last time when I upgraded to a 500GB and I still have around 50GB of crap on there. When I went to backup it said I have enough space (I made a 30GB FAT32 partition). I know it doesn't back up the initial "padding" data but it's hard for me to tell how much I have to delete so I don't have to redownload most of my content. I went through this last time and while I didn't have a YLOD or system failure it was still a pain to make a list of stuff I deleted and have to redownload.
 
chubigans said:
Where can I get some more info on this?

If you're leery about doing it yourself and following the steps the guy above me linked, the person I sent it to was JD's Electronics. If you search ebay for "PS3 reflow" they're one of two shops offering the service. I got mine back on Friday and so far so good. I did a backup on Saturday (which took 8.5 hours for about 150GB of data) and played a couple of BDs and games throughout the weekend. Personally I'm just glad to have a backup now since my last one is from 2007 and pretty much useless. I'd be super excited if it lasts until the slims are released.

We rode our triples hard :/

Damn lead-free solder >_<
 
Just an FYI, if you do get your same PS3 back after having it repaired, it does not necessarily mean your HD will still work on it.

I had mine fixed last month (yellow light as well), got the exact same system back (same serial and all that), however it was totally reset. New system ID and MAC address.

When I put my 250gb HD back in, I was forced to format and lost everything that I hadn't already had backed up. And not all of the saves I did have backed up worked because they check the system ID.

For example, Devil May Cry 4's save only partially works. It won't allow you to access any ranked modes, or the ranking screens. The Metal Gear Database save is oddly enough, tied to your system as well and won't work, nor will it read a MGS4 file form another PS3 (luckily for that all I had to do was load up my save from the end of the game and sit though the credits again, then re-save the game complete file). I just bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma as well, and it tried to load my demo save with the old PS3 ID, but wouldn't because of the different ID, so I'm assuming Ninja Gaiden Sigma's save is also tied to an ID.

Sorry for your loss, chubigans. I know how crappy it is. I still haven't finished reinstalling/patching everything either, and it's been a month.
 
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