PS3 Hard drive failure question

  • Thread starter Racin510s
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Racin510s

Racin510s

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Mocksville, NC
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First I apoligize if this has been covered. I did do a search for hard drive failure before creating this new thread. I did find some comentary but it was not very helpful.

My hard drive failed at a little over a year of use. Never was overheated, always had a seperate fan blowing cool air from the register of my central AC. It was always kept clean, blown out regularly. My hard drive happened to be a Toshiba 120GB drive which in PCs are known for their unrealiabilty. My model # is CECH-2101A. I am going to buy a new hard drive (Western Digital Scorpoi 250GB) from Newegg for $69. I found a data recovery company that said they could recover the PS3 data from the original hard drive.

Has anyone here ever pursued this option? The reason I am attempting this route is because many of my saves were not backed up. I did do regular back ups of my GT5. The others I didn't play very often but still there were many hours of game play involved including games downloaded from the PSN store. Sony says that I can get all of these back including the purchased DLC.

So has anyone ever gone this route before? I have done the math and it is cheaper than buying a new PS3. It is alittle more expensive than sending it to Sony for repair but in the process I will loose everthing else except my GT5. I was playing GT Academy when this happened so hadn't backed up that save but can do it again with no problem.

I would appreciate answers concerning this specific question not a bunch of flaming about being an idiot for not backing up all my saves. Thank you in advance.
 
Well as far as i'm aware once the drive in the ps3 is dead that's it. The data is gone and cannot be recovered (due to sony's encryption on the drive). You can't just plug the drive into a pc then transfer the data to another drive. DLC is fine it can just be re-downloaded... if you haven't already used up the maximum console activations.

Hope this has helped.

PS. If you are going to put a new drive in go an SSD :sly:👍
 
Racin510s
First I apoligize if this has been covered. I did do a search for hard drive failure before creating this new thread. I did find some comentary but it was not very helpful.

My hard drive failed at a little over a year of use. Never was overheated, always had a seperate fan blowing cool air from the register of my central AC. It was always kept clean, blown out regularly. My hard drive happened to be a Toshiba 120GB drive which in PCs are known for their unrealiabilty. My model # is CECH-2101A. I am going to buy a new hard drive (Western Digital Scorpoi 250GB) from Newegg for $69. I found a data recovery company that said they could recover the PS3 data from the original hard drive.

Has anyone here ever pursued this option? The reason I am attempting this route is because many of my saves were not backed up. I did do regular back ups of my GT5. The others I didn't play very often but still there were many hours of game play involved including games downloaded from the PSN store. Sony says that I can get all of these back including the purchased DLC.

So has anyone ever gone this route before? I have done the math and it is cheaper than buying a new PS3. It is alittle more expensive than sending it to Sony for repair but in the process I will loose everthing else except my GT5. I was playing GT Academy when this happened so hadn't backed up that save but can do it again with no problem.

I would appreciate answers concerning this specific question not a bunch of flaming about being an idiot for not backing up all my saves. Thank you in advance.
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Swapping out the hard drive is the best option here, no need to get a new on at all. As you see, hard drives are cheap and easy to get.

As for the data, I'd get it recovered, if you really need it (can be costly). You'd be amazed on how much a hard drive can be destroyed but still be able to recover data from it. If you do get the data recovered, you can add most of the data to the new hard drive (not all). Some game saves and downloaded games are copy protected and will not let you copy back to the ps3. GT5 however, allows this. Games that you downloaded doesn't need to be recovered as you can re-download them for free.

Edit, dont know how the encryption works.
 
My PS3 had just updated to the 4.11 update. So if I understand correctly I put the 4.11 update on a flash drive. Once I install the new hard drive will the PS3 system format the drive to FAT32 or do I need to format to FAT32 before installing the hard drive? What is the process with the flash drive and the firmware update? I have built 100's of PCs and all the problems related to PCs. This PS3 project is not something I am familiar with. Some step by step instruction would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
You just install the HDD into the PS3 and it will format it. Make sure your flash drive is in FAT32 format. Make the "PS3" folder(all letters are in caps!) and then an "UPDATE" folder. Then you just paste the update into the "UPDATE" folder. After the HDD is formatted by the PS3 it will ask for you to insert a flash drive to update the software.
 
nick09, thank you very much. Have you ever heard of anyone sending a failed hard drive to a data recovery center to retrieve the data from the original hard drive? I have read that the data is encrypted and that even some gave saves are as well. We did not back up every game we had mostly because they weren't played very much. I have talked to Data Recovery Center and they said they could retrieve the data from a PS3 hard drive.
 
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They would have to guarantee that the files would be reusable on the new hard drive. Ask them about their policy before you go and spend somewhere around $100-$1000 just for some save files.
 
You could try a program like ghost to do a sector by sector copy(not the best method) and ghost to the new drive and boom your done but you will be copying over issues.
 
Have you tried just freezing the hard drive for a while? As in literally putting it in a freezer bag and then putting that in the freezer for maybe an hour. I've had a lot of success doing that with failed drives in the past, a PS3 drive included.
 
neema_t
Have you tried just freezing the hard drive for a while? As in literally putting it in a freezer bag and then putting that in the freezer for maybe an hour. I've had a lot of success doing that with failed drives in the past, a PS3 drive included.
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That wouldn't work all of the time. When you freeze it and then let it thaw out. That would let water form inside the hard drive. It would do tons of damage to the platters when the hard drive arm encounters this water. Making a precise instrument useless and scratching up the platters when it should not.
 
nick09
That wouldn't work all of the time. When you freeze it and then let it thaw out. That would let water form inside the hard drive. It would do tons of damage to the platters when the hard drive arm encounters this water. Making a precise instrument useless and scratching up the platters when it should not.
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That's why you put it in a bag to stop excess condensation, that's what I did. It's only a temporary measure to copy data off anyway, I probably forgot to mention that. I had a few drives that I froze, they would work for 5-10 minutes, then I froze them again and kept doing that until they completely stopped working, but saved a lot of data in doing so. It's a last resort but it's better than just throwing away drives full of stuff.
 
Grayfox
Just be glad it is not an xbox from what I hear you can't replace with any 2.5" drive but you have to get a Microsoft Xbox drive.
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At this present state of time, yes an no. I have a 320Gb Western Digital Scorpio Black in 1 of my 360's. Bit of a pain to set it up. However, hopefully very soon all that will change and we will be able to put whatever we want in them :sly:👍
 

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