PS3 wont start after HD upgrade

Flaccus · 03-08-2008 04:40AM #1

Any of the guides I have seen say the PS3 should recognise your new drive and offer to format it. Mine didn't. Instead I was greeted by

"The system software cannot be run correctly. Press the PS button to try to restart the system. If the system cannot be restarted correctly, the system partition of the hard disk must be reformatted and you must reinstall the system software. Insert storage media that contains update data 2.XX or later then press the start and select buttons at the same time."

Anway, consulting the manual says this is expected when you change drive. So I need to load the latest firmware (2.42) from a fat32 usb stick, and make sure it resided in the ps3\update folder on the stick.

Does anyone know if the firmwares are region specific cause nothing is hosted on the EU PS3 site. Only seems to be on the US site.

And while I'm at it, does anyone know why this happened in the 1st place and while other users have had no issues, and just formatted their new drive on bootup. The drive is brand new and has no partitioning strategy on it.

Helix · 03-08-2008 04:42AM

connect the harddrive to your pc if at all possible and format to fat32, that should allow the ps3 to pick it up and format as needs be

Flaccus · 03-08-2008 04:57AM

Had thought of that actually, but seeing as the max. partition you can have with fat32 is somehting like 32gig, and the internal ps3 file system is not fat32 to begin with (and only needed when using external drives), I discounted it.

But yeah, maybe a file system needs to be on the drive in the 1st place before the PS3 will recognise it.

tman · 03-08-2008 04:59AM

It shouldn't really be necessary to update to 2.42, I'd say just go for the most recent PAL version of the firmware that you can find... (Have you updated the firmware on this PS3 yet, or is it using the factory firmware?)

Flaccus · 03-08-2008 05:05AM

Yeah, it just prompts for 2.XX. Even says this in the PS3 manual that you have to reload your firmware when you replace the hard drive

2.42 is on it already..updated the other day.

Can you post a link to a 2.xx firmware ?
Can only find US ones. Should I chance it ?

Kintarō Hattori · 03-08-2008 05:06AM

http://ie.playstation.com/help-support/ps3/system-software/download/

That's the link for firmware 2.42 at the irish playstation site.

Flaccus · 03-08-2008 05:14AM

cheers mate.

was trying the uk one myself and it wasn't responding.

same with the irish one.

must be something up with my dns.

Helix · 03-08-2008 05:24AM

now tbhp, i installed a 350gb hd with no problems. but i think if you had any sort of file system on the drive at all, the ps3 might pick it up and do the formatting itself

if its just a drive full of 0s, the playstation might not recognise it at all

its worth a shot

Flaccus · 03-08-2008 05:26AM

Will do. Anyway, can't get that firmware link to work. Is it down ?

I assume your 320 was preformatted then ?

ravydavygravy · 03-08-2008 08:38AM

Flaccus wrote: »

the max. partition you can have with fat32 is somehting like 32gig.

Fat32 can support up to a Terabyte - the 32Gb limit is just a winXP installer restriction:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314463

But I digress - I like you would have expected the ps3 to auto-format the drive, regardless of filesystem or not...

guil · 03-08-2008 09:29AM

i only changed my hd recently and had no problems, put in a 160gb drive and formatted it

weeder · 03-08-2008 11:20AM

wanna try an earlier 2.XX and see what happens?

ongarite · 03-08-2008 11:55AM

This can happen with some new HD installed in PS3. You need to download the Sony FW either from the link above or elsewhere, copy it to USB key or external FAT32 HDD.
The Sony FW has to in folder structure "PS3\UPDATE\PS3UPDAT.PUP"

Flaccus · 03-08-2008 04:51PM

Thanks. Yeah, got the info for how to do the update from the PS3 manual. Problem was I couldn't download the file. Got my mate to do it. Hopefully it will work.

Interesting how some drives are recognised by ps3 (formatted or not) and some are not. If mine isn't after I load the firmware then will need to format it I guess.

L31mr0d · 04-08-2008 01:10AM

what drive where you using if you don't me asking? Have you seen any other threads online about others having problems with that drive and the PS3?

Blazer · 04-08-2008 06:57AM

Have changed about 3 drives in mine and they all work fine.
Original version of firmware was pre 2.40..I've also tested it with 2.40 and no problems.
One of the hard drives was brand new and the others had FAT32/NTFS on them.
What playstation version are you using?

Flaccus · 04-08-2008 07:15PM

It’s not the version of ps3 firmware running on the ps3 that is the problem or even having a filesystem on the new drive. The ps3 recognises some drives and others you need to load the ps3 firmware into memory from a portable device first. This is discussed in the manual. All is well now and have 500gig samsung up and running. Just took me a while to download 2.42 over broadband issues. I still dont know what factors determines if the drive is recognised or not without loading the firmware but since 500gig 2.5" are just out I am not surprised it wasn’t recognised. My restore of settings and saved games went perfectly afterwards.

bladetrinity · 05-08-2008 07:36PM

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-change-a-playstation-3-hard-disc
hope this helps mate

Flaccus · 06-08-2008 07:34AM

Thanks.
Changing the drive was never an issue though. It's a 2 minute job. Problem was the drive needed the firmware to be reloaded for some reason before the PS3 would recognise it and offer to format it. This video does not show that. Sorted now. Thanks.

PS3 wont start after HD upgrade

Comments