Putting a 250GB HDD(Dell) in my PS3, Help please!

pjjk

Hi, I bought a new laptop just there from Dell, its a 500GB(2x250GB). I want to put one of the HardDrives in my PS3 as I'm constantly being told I "you have less than 500MB free". I have a few questions though,
1) Will I have to install anything on the HardDrive to make it work in the PS3?
2) Will it be safe to put the 250GB Dell harddrive in it?
3) I have no idea of the speed of the HardDrive, any way I can check it out?
Also if theres anything I need to know, if someone would tell me it would be great.
Thanks
Paddy

guil

if its a new laptop it will void ur warranty and ur ps3 warranty will be void aswell
1 make sure its not the drive with the os on it or anything else important and it has to be formatted to fat32
2 yeah it will be safe
3 i think ya can check the speed from device manager, it should be wrote on the hd aswell

pjjk

Thanks, I know which one is empty, but I'm not sure is the Recovery partition on the 2nd HDD. Also would it be hard putting the 60gig back in the laptop?
Thanks for your fast reply!
Thanks

guil

no it would be the same as takin it out

GothPunk

guil07 wrote: »

if its a new laptop it will void ur warranty and ur ps3 warranty will be void aswell

Just to let you know that changing the hard drive in the PS3 does not void your warranty.

I'm pretty sure you'll need to put a firmware update onto the HDD before you put it into the PS3.

pjjk

Ok, I don't know if I post this here, but how would I find out if the "Recovery" partition is on the 2nd harddrive?

Helix

http://www.game.ie/ps3/Latest/60/Feature.aspx

guil

GothPunk wrote: »

Just to let you know that changing the hard drive in the PS3 does not void your warranty.

I'm pretty sure you'll need to put a firmware update onto the HDD before you put it into the PS3.

oh right i thought it did and so did a lot of others here and some hd,s need the firmware loaded on it first mine worked grand just put it in with nothin on it

RangeR

• It won't void your PS3 warrenty.
• Firmware gets saved to Flash memory on the PS3 NOT the hard drive.
• Just put the hard drive in and do a FULL FORMAT from the PS3 XMB. It will take a LONG time. Mine took 24 hours to fully format a 320GB HDD.

Helix

24 HOURS??!!!!

mine took 25 minutes for a 350gb drive

guil

IrishTLR wrote: »

• It won't void your PS3 warrenty.
• Firmware gets saved to Flash memory on the PS3 NOT the hard drive.
• Just put the hard drive in and do a FULL FORMAT from the PS3 XMB. It will take a LONG time. Mine took 24 hours to fully format a 320GB HDD.

i didnt say it gets saved on the hd but the ps3 wont start with some hd's until firmware update is put on to it look here

mathias

Most hard drives come pre-formatted to FAT32 , as that is the most universal format , NTFS is windows only.

So , if your drive is new , and pre-formatted fat 32 , then a quick format is all thats done by the ps3 and its fairly short.

If is NTFS , and it might be if it was a laptop spare , then it will take absolutely ages for the PS3 to format it.

RangeR

guil07 wrote: »

i didnt say it gets saved on the hd but the ps3 wont start with some hd's until firmware update is put on to it look here

You didn't but Goth did

@Mathius - I don't think the PS3 formats the INTERNAL HDD as FAT32. I am almost sure it uses some sort of proprietary format with encryption.

@Helix - Are you sure that you did a FULL format and not a QUICK one? A PC normally formatting [full not quick] NTFS won't do a 320GB drive in that time.

guil

the ps3 does format the drive to fat 32

GothPunk

IrishTLR wrote: »

You didn't but Goth did

I didn't mean that the firmware is stored on the HDD, just that you'll need to reload the firmware from the HDD. I guess you could also use a USB key but I figured the HDD would be easiest. Forgot about the reformat though! :pac: Just in case you do need to reload the firmware from an external HDD/USB key, the folder structure you have to use is "PS3\UPDATE\PS3UPDAT.PUP".

Does anyone know why you have to reload the firmware after a HDD upgrade? Security measure?

RangeR

GothPunk wrote: »

Does anyone know why you have to reload the firmware after a HDD upgrade? Security measure?

Well, I didn't have to. Maybe you have to upgrade to a certain firmware to use bigger HDD's. I'm not sure.

RangeR

guil07 wrote: »

the ps3 does format the drive to fat 32

If that was the case, in theory, you should be able to plug your PS3 HDD into your PC and read it's contents. However, we all know that this is not the case. It's not just the files that are encrypted, it's the whole file stystem.

It may have a disk format based on FAT32, but it isn't FAT32.

guil

yeah i dont thin it is fat32 cos when i got a bigger hd there was an offer in peats for an ex one for 60 so bought that and just took out the hd and put the old one in the case, havent touched it since but last night i connected it to my pc and partition magic said it was unallocated

Dont be at yourself

The PS3 harddrive can also handle files bigger than 4gb, suggesting it's not FAT32.

byte

OP: Are you sure your Dell hard drives aren't in a RAID setup? I know my Dell had the 2 HDD's in this way, which was a nightmare.

guil

i was gonna ask that in the first place but if it was in raid wouldnt it only give for eg if ya have 2*300gb hd's wouldnt it just say ya have 300gb as a hard drive then

Helix

IrishTLR wrote: »

@Helix - Are you sure that you did a FULL format and not a QUICK one? A PC normally formatting [full not quick] NTFS won't do a 320GB drive in that time.

full yup

it was a brand new out of box drive, and it may have had the correct file system intact which might explain it

pjjk

RAID? I'm lost now! So what all do I have to do? The drive is empty(unsure if the recovery partition is off this drive tho), PS3 is all backed up on an external drive. So can I just take the HardDrive, swap the 2, format them, then copy the stuff back on them?

guil

one type of raid is 2 drives the same size and one is a mirror of the other i dunno how to check if they are or if everythin would be on the second drive, the best thin to do is take the drive out of the laptop and turn it on and see does it work properly, if it does it will be grand swap them over

pjjk

Just on to a friend there, he said it isn't raid, as the 2 HDDs show up seperatly. SO can I just take out the empty HDD now and format it?

guil

take it out and see does the laptop still turn on before ya format it

RangeR

guil07 wrote: »

take it out and see does the laptop still turn on before ya format it

Yeah, it will also tell you if you are taking out the CORRECT hard drive It would be a bitch if you took out your boot HDD [the one with Windows installed] and only realise it after you format it in the PS3

guil

ha talk about a kick in the sack
could ya imagine ya would never stop kickin urself

pjjk

I'd obviously check that my laptop works before formatting the second hard-drive

mathias

@Mathius - I don't think the PS3 formats the INTERNAL HDD as FAT32. I am almost sure it uses some sort of proprietary format with encryption.

It may not be FAT32 , or at the very least its a locked version because it cant be cloned ( at least not on Acronix or Clonezilla ) , but it can read FAT32 thus enabling a quick format on a new drive.

It cannot recognise NTFS however , forcing a low level format that takes considerably longer than if you install a FAT32 formatted drive.

pjjk

Went to swap the HDDs the other day, and the harddrive in the laptop is different to the one in the PS3. There the same size, both SATA, but the connectors on the top are different.
So seeing that won't work, could anyone advise me a good(cheap) shop on eBay where I could pick up a 250GB that would work in my PS3.
Thanks again

guil

tbh 250 is massive for the ps3 and if unless ur plannin on puttin loads of videos on it i'd get a smaller one, look on the peats site and search iomega its the second last one i got the 160 and it works in the ps3, didntrealise they did a 250 for 20 extra

pjjk

Thanks guil07, I never thought of peats. There prices are really good, I expected them to be more expensive.

guil

yeah me too, and ya can throw the ps hd into the case and use it as a portable hd then

pjjk

I took out the HDD from the laptop again last night, and to my surprise the connectors on the top were removable, and so was the cover(my stupidity!) Just to answer questions people had earlier about putting the firmware on the HDD, its not true, you just stick the hard drive in, it quick formats it first, then brings you to the XMB menu(somehow its there) where you go and full format. It takes 16hours to do.

Flaccus

"Just to answer questions people had earlier about putting the firmware on the HDD, its not true, you just stick the hard drive in, it quick formats it first, then brings you to the XMB menu(somehow its there) where you go and full format. It takes 16hours to do. "

Actually mate you just got lucky. It depends on the model of the drive you have as to whether you have to load the firmware first or not. The PS3 recognises some drives straight away, but some of the very new ones it does not (like the Samsung 500gig I installed a couple of weeks ago). To cover this possibility the PS3 manual says when changing drives you may be asked to load the firmware as was the case with my drive. Therefore it is inaccurate to say that putting your fimware on the HDD is "not true".

I have no idea why your drive took 16 hours to format though. That seem a bit over the top. I followed the instructions on a brand new 500gig drive which had no file system on it, and I reckon firmware load, formatting and restoring all my files took under 10 minutes. Maybe if the drive already has a files system on it (as in the case of your drive) it has to do a full format.

RangeR

I think there is some misleading posts regarding firmware and larger HDD's.

• You do not have to put the firmware on the HDD.
• You may have to upgrade the firmware on your PS3 to recognise larger HDD's

The firmware on PS3 is held in FLASH, not on the HDD. As I'm sure most of you can attest, swapping hard drives doesn't put your PS3 firmware back to 1.0. It also doesn't remove your PSN account.

Where do you think these details are stored once you remove the hard drive.

In fact, and I haven't tested this, your PS3 should still work without a HDD in at all. This was the original design of the first PS3 just before launch. It was to save Sony some money. They later decided to put a smaller hard drive in to the cheaper models.

Flaccus

Yes, but what is strange is that I had the very latest firmware on my PS3 to begin with. When I upgraded to a 500gig drive I expected no issues. But the PS3 boot screen told me to load the latest firmware from a usb stick back onto the PS3. Otherwise the drive would simply not be recognised by the PS3 and I could not proceed any further.

So my question is - if the latest firmware was already on the PS3 to begin with, why did I have to load it from a usb stick (which is also what the PS3 manual says to do). Is it possible that some newer drives prevent the PS3 from reading the firmware in it's flash memory from a cold boot (at least the part that tells it what the drive is), and you have to force the ps3 to do it by putting the firmware on a usb stick and forcing it to read it ?

RangeR

Flaccus wrote: »

So my question is - if the latest firmware was already on the PS3 to begin with, why did I have to load it from a usb stick (which is also what the PS3 manual says to do). Is it possible that some newer drives prevent the PS3 from reading the firmware in it's flash memory from a cold boot (at least the part that tells it what the drive is), and you have to force the ps3 to do it by putting the firmware on a usb stick and forcing it to read it ?

And that is a very good question. One which I don't have an answer for

GothPunk

IrishTLR wrote: »

And that is a very good question. One which I don't have an answer for

Glad to see I'm not the only one!

As I said, my guess would be for security reasons - perhaps Sony have learned their lesson from leaving so many back doors in the PSP architecture and have made the PS3 more secure. On the one hand they enable you to (relatively) easily upgrade the hard drive yet on the other hand are being more secure by asking for the latest firmware update (in the cases where the PS3 is/isn't recognising something about the disk).

The thing I'm interested in is what is the limiting factor - is it the size of the disk, as Flaccus says, or is it only for newer model HDDs? Maybe something else entirely? If we knew that we might be able to figure out why the firmware update is sometimes required.

bladetrinity

[URL="ttp://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-change-a-playstation-3-hard-disc"]ttp://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-change-a-playstation-3-hard-disc[/URL]

Hellrazer

Dont want to start a new thread but can anyone recommend a 250 or 320gb hard drive (or bigger) for the PS3
Only have it since Saturday and already Ive used up 20gb out of 40gb(well 37gb it says in the system details)
Thanks
Richie.

guil

guil07 wrote: »

tbh 250 is massive for the ps3 and if unless ur plannin on puttin loads of videos on it i'd get a smaller one, look on the peats site and search iomega its the second last one i got the 160 and it works in the ps3, didntrealise they did a 250 for 20 extra

try one of these they are good value for money which is a surprise from peats

Hellrazer

guil07 wrote: »

try one of these they are good value for money which is a surprise from peats

Got a link Guil07??

Flaccus

I have this

http://www.memoryc.com/products/description/500GB_Samsung_Spinpoint_2_5-HDD_Hard_Drive-SATA_8MB_5400rpm-HM500LI/index.html

A bit pricey at the moment. Was closer to 150 when I bought it. Because of the size of the platters it's got one of the fastest read/write rates out there, faster then most 7200rpm drives but not the fastest access time. Still, it's the largest capacity 2.5" drive you can currently get, and runs perfectly in my PS3. You can hear it when it's reading though, so is a little bit noisier then the stock 40gig. But not too bad. I have noticed when installing demos you download from PSN it's noticeably quicker then the 40gig due to super fast read/write times. Overall very happy with it. Bear in mind in order to get this drive up and running you need to copy the PS3 firmware onto a usb stick and load it from there when you boot up with the new drive installed. The PS3 manual explains this. And the onscreen instructions tell you what to do. The update file just needs to be in the folder structure PS3\UPDATE on the USB stick.

After the Samsung, I guess the WD Scorpio Black 320gig 7200rpm 16meg cache is the next best drive around. Probably faster then the Samsung over the extra cache, but you loose on capacity and the Samsung with it's platter density matches it for transfer/read speed. 7200rpm drives generally run a little hotter then 5400prm drives but nothing to worry about. The PS3 can handle it. Not sure if this drive requires the ps3 firmware to be loaded. It's a nice bit cheaper then the 500gig Samsung at €133 on Komplett.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=358193

guil

Hellrazer wrote: »

Got a link Guil07??

no cos the site runs off flash just go to peats.ie and out iomega in the saerch bar at the top and then its the second last link in the results

guil

guil07 wrote: »

tbh 250 is massive for the ps3 and if unless ur plannin on puttin loads of videos on it i'd get a smaller one, look on the peats site and search iomega its the second last one i got the 160 and it works in the ps3, didntrealise they did a 250 for 20 extra

meant to qoute this one hellrazer

Kintarō Hattori

http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi?view_product=1&id=24795&sid=14&cid=116&scid=305

guil

when i'm on the site the address bar just stays as www.peats.ie

Hellrazer

Cheers lads--That Iomega looks good for the price.
To think I couldnt even fill 10gb on my Elite in months and half fill the PS3 in 4 days.

1 more question--can I back up my game saves before installing the new drive?

guil

yeah if ya have an ext hd there's a back up option under system settings, i dunno if ya can back up to a memory stick that way but ya can just copy each save to a memory stick