I had a 60 gig ps3 since the release of the console and near the mid of 2011. My console was hit with the dreaded “Yellow/red blinking light”, which forced me to buy a ps3 slim. A lot of my old data from games that I played are still on my old HDD from the 60 gig, and I would like to know ways to retrieve the data without having to do a quick fix to the ps3. I attempted the hair drier trick twice, and didn’t work. If I remove the HDD from my old 60 gig and put it inside my PS3 slim, will the data still be there for me to back up, or will it be erased? Also, is there a way to try to format the HDD to my computer, and would this be a way to backup the data I need?
You can get an external USB enclosure for laptop hard drives… they’re the same type of hard drive (2.5") that the PS3 uses.
AFTER putting the old PS3 drive in the enclosure, you can hook it up to the new PS3 with USB. The USB cable should also provide power to the old hard drive. It’s iffy if you’ll be able to recover the data this way. Never tried this myself. You’ll probably just confuse the system as-is and it won’t be able to recover your old data.
You best put in the old drive into the new machine first and THEN copy your save data/scores/trophies to a USB flash drive… THEN remove the old hard drive and put the new PS3’s original HD back in.
You can still use the old 60GB hard drive with a computer or the new PS3. You’ll have to reformat (don’t know if it’s FAT-32 or HSF etc.) it which will erase all the old data and programs on that HD unless the PS3 uses an HD partition scheme that’s compatible with PC’s. (Yes, you WILL have to download all the games you bought or demo’d if you want to use them again on the new PS3. The games cannot be copied hard drive-to-hard drive as far as I know and the files are far too big for USB 2.0 transfers… It takes too long for files to transfer via USB 2.0 when they’re in the Gigabytes range…! You won’t have to pay for them again since PSN keeps track of what you buy online.)
Of course, you’ll still need the enclosure to be able to use that old hard drive with a computer or PS3 as a large memory brick…
thanks for the info. I’ll see about the enclosure tip.
Also, another question…If I do happen to switch HDD’s from one ps3 to another, then have to reformat the newly added HDD, will music and pictures be erased as well? I can’t seem to find any reliable sources that will confirm this or not.
Keep in mind the PS3 HDD is a standard SATA 2.5" Hard drive, same as any laptop.
As for replacement hard drives any sata 2.5" HDD can be used. I don’t recommend the installation of SSD drives in a PS3.
So as what George said any 2.5" HDD USB enclosure will work.
And the PS3 uses the Fat 32 format.
Yes if you Reformat the HDD you will lose all data that was on the HDD, including pictures and music.
Thanks for the information, guys! This really helped :D.
This won’t work. The data on the PS3 hard drive is encrypted using some kind of key unique to each system. If you hook it up to another PS3, it won’t read the data, it will only allow you to format it. The only way to get the data off of the drive is to reflow the 60GB to get it to work temporarily and then backup the data.
Also, if you happened to purchase anything from the PSN video store using the old 60GB system, you won’t be able to download any videos from PSN (even the free ones) until you deactivate the old system. I’ve read that people have even called Sony with the serial number of their system and Sony will refuse to deactivate it. The only way is to get the old PS3 working again, log into PSN and deactivate that system.
as an old 60GB owner I knew it was encrypted but this deactivation bullshit takes the cake in a long line of bullshit sony is force feeding customers. all they care about is content control (anti-piracy). notice how when the system breaks and it is not your fault, they force you to loose the license to content they sold you. then they tell you to buy a console from them and buy the content twice. this is so typical of sony. they failed to provide me access to my old account to get stuff I purchased when I had a working email address and phone number. they said they would email but they did not. they said they would call my phone back but they did not. they even pulled content I purchased from my re-download list saying that it was no longer available on PSN even though thousands of people have the same software installed on the hard drive and have no problems. so yeah they promised this re-download thing and then when the hardware fails they pull the one thing you thought you had as a backup only because it competes with newer similar software titles or previous software was used by someone to leverage security vulnerabilities that lead to piracy. so they punish you, the consumer, to combat piracy by the few. they still fail at piracy control so all you have is a salty CEO who treats his fan base like shit.
That’s nice and all, but I don’t really see how this has to do with me. I’m only trying to retrieve data from my old ps3’s HDD, which has family photos only on there, music, and game saves from PS1 games I wish to continue off of (1 being my process of beating Ruby and emerald weapon in FF7), not start some discussion on how sony sucks.
Will getting an External HDD enclosure (which was suggested by the first two commenters) work if I use it to extract the data I want off of that HDD? I don’t wanna have to buy one and have it not work.
I haven’t personally tried it, but there’s a 99.9999% possibility it won’t work. Sony wouldn’t allow people to circumvent their system so easily.
I had the same problem. I tried to put the old hdd in my ps3 and I lost all the data beause the hdd had to be reformatted. Now this didn’t really bother me because I just tried to delete the data so I could sell my ps3 to gaystop. If you want your data you need I get your ps3 reflowed. What happens is the solder on the pcb loses connections from use and causes the yellow light of death. I would reccomend getting your ps3 reflowed, retrieve all the necessary data and ten selling it to gaystop ASAP. A lot of times reflowibg is only a temporary fix.
and what exactly is “reflowing”?
In all honesty, I care more about the the music and image files than the actual save data files, since I only really wanted to get the FF7 and 9 save data I have on there. Would getting the USB external HDD enclosure work to get those pics and music files?
No, because everything on the HDD is encrypted, not just game data. Reflowing is a process by which they put the motherboard of the PS3 (or any PCB, but in this case your console) into a special oven to melt the solder. After it cools down, any cracks in the solder should be repaired. That’s what these homebrew methods using hairdryers and toaster ovens on YouTube are trying to replicate.
Why would you store your only copies of these music and picture files on the PS3 instead of your PC?
Is that relevant? It’s not, but if you must know, I didn’t have a pc for awhile when I had the 60 gig and stored my music and photos on there.
Just find someone who will repair your PS3 YLOD. Make sure they use a reflowing machine.
[media=youtube]Vr1zyAGwnuU[/media]
would a video like this be of any help? I’m not interested in fixing up and selling the ps3, since the disk drive is also damaged. I just wanna get the data out of it… lol
if you can dump the nand and get the keys or hash’s or whatever, you might have a %1 chance of success decrypting your hard drive. my rant before was just to indicate that sony has the capacity to help you without actually repairing your PS3. if they actually cared about customers you could send them your encrypted hard drive and they could send you the un-encrypted data back on the same hard drive. but they won’t do it because you could compare the encrypted data to the unencrypted data and that would lead to breach of proprietary security techniques. so once again, they have multiple solutions that would fix your problem but they wont. there are modchips and tools and stuff for dumping your nand but the key system changes with every firmware update so the trick is finding some tools online that are still relevant.
My ps3 froze up I pushed the power button and nothing i then pulled the power cord out
when i went to restart the ps3 it took me to a screen say i need to plug in controller in usb i tried that it wont get past the screen any help would be great thanx
Doesn’t really have anything to do with the OP, unless you’re just wanting to get past that screen in order to gain access to the HD.
Im just trying to get it back up and going id really not want to lose my pics and stuff on it but i cant get it to go past that screen my controller was working fine up to this point so i dont think its the prob