So, here it is the definitive guide to swapping your bundled HDD for a huge new one. Well, not definitive; in fact not even as good as the other guides you can easily find with a bit of googling. This one is ours though and by virtue of being ours it’s best.
Anyway, on with the guide.
First and most importantly read this list. This is what you need before you even start to think about popping that little black cover on the side of your PS3.
1) A new 2.5 inch (laptop) SATA hard disk. It can be any speed, mine is 5400rpm because that is what the original disc spins at and they are generally cheaper.
2) The latest firmware update downloaded to your PC. You need this when you boot up to your newly installed hard disk, otherwise the PS3 isn’t going to play nice. More on this later.
3) A Philips-head screwdriver that fits *exactly* the little hdd screws in the hdd caddy. I wish I could tell you the correct size but the best I can do is say “small”.
4) An external USB hard disk big enough to back up your PS3 system. The backup process zips your data up a bit but you’ll still need something with a few GB to get it all on.
5) A duster. I wish I’d had one of these but as you will see from the images, I didn’t.
Now, getting started.
Switch on your PS3 and navigate to the backup utility in your system settings.
Plug in your external USB HDD and select the backup.
NOTE: Playstation 3 only likes FAT32 file format, most likely your external hdd is NTFS format so it might need to be reformatted. Vista (and I think XP) will not format in FAT32 over 38GB which is not likely to be enough. The solution is here
Confirm the backup.
Running smoothly…
All done!
Now, remove your External USB HDD and put it on your PC, you need the latest update software on there.
Download the latest system software to your PC, at time of writing it was 2.5 and the file was 137MB.
Now you need to put that file on your external USB HDD but here’s the trick, it doesn’t just go on the drive. Oh no, that would be too easy and logical and lead to screens like this:
When you get your PS3 HDD swapped and booted up for the first time. It causes sudden relaxation of the anal muscles.
No, you need to place the system software file (PS3UPDAT.PUP) in a folder called “UPDATE” which is, in turn in a folder called “PS3″ so it goes like this: PS3>UPDATE>PS3UPDAT.PUP You could put this on a USB stick if you’d prefer but be totally sure that the file structure is as above or you will get the laxative screen.
Now, on with the guide.
Switch off and unplug your PS3, disconnect everything from it and move it to a clean, clear, dust-free environment. Or you PC desk if you’re like me.
Pop off the little black cover on the right hand side of the PS3 with the help of a straight-edge screwdriver if you need it. Be gentle, you’re waving tools around near your shiny black baby.
I know, a little bit of dusting wouldn’t go amiss but it really looks worse than it is, damn camera shows up everything.
When you have the cover off you are faced with a little blue screw. It almost smiles at you. Now, some guides I’ve read say that this screw is difficult to remove. Mine wasn’t, it was easy. Apply a decent amount of pressure and pop the screw, it spins off and out without too much hassle but don’t get complacent, this moon-faced grinning blue screw is merely a warm up act for the four evil little silver blighters inside.
Look at it, smiling at you!
Slide your straight-edge screwdriver (or thumbnail) under the little bit of metal that the blue screw was holding down and pull upwards. The HDD caddy should come away from the PS3 without too much fuss. Lift it out, remove your PS3 from the scene and prepare for the battle you’re about to have with four little silver nuggets of evil.
I’m not joking, this screw is evil. It would gladly make itself a little rucksack from your scrotum if you give it half a chance. Get the right equipment for the job. If you put your screwdriver in one of these screws and it doesn’t fit *exactly* then use a different screwdriver. Take the whole HDD caddy to B&Q with you and buy a whole new screwdriver set if you have to but be warned: This screw will not come out without exactly the right screwdriver.
When you have all four evil silver screws out remove the old and place your new HDD in the caddy. You did make sure you bought a 2.5inch SATA drive didn’t you? If you got a 3.5inch or an IDE drive please post here so I can laugh at you. Replace those evil screws; you don’t need to put them back in as tight as they were when you took them out.
Put the drive back into the PS3 exactly the same way as you removed it. Except in reverse. It should require a little pressure to get it back on to its pins inside the PS3. Replace the smiley blue screw and pop the HDD cover back on.
Now, you have everything in place for a successful reinstallation and restore of your software. Plug everything back in to your PS3, including the controller, it needs to be connected via a USB cable for the first little while.
Make sure your external USB HDD is plugged in to one of the PS3’s USB sockets (you did make sure the file structure was correct didn’t you?) and power up. You should get this screen:
Hold down your select and start buttons on the USB connected controller and the PS3 will format the new hard disk.
This doesn’t take very long.
Installation of your system software should begin when the hdd has finished formatting. It doesn’t take too long and when it finishes you’re greeted with a lovely screen displaying your new statistics.
Now, you will have to go through the setting time and date, internet connection settings crap that you have to do when you wipe everything from the system but when you’ve done all that (it’s self-explanatory) go back to your backup utility in system settings (NOT THE RESTORE OPTION) and select it. This time we’re going to restore a previous backup, the one you took earlier. Make sure your external USB HDD is plugged in and select the option to restore a previous backup. Select the one from your USB HDD and set it going. It will take a while so be prepared to wait. You could use this time for dusting.
When this completes you are all done, your system should be back to how it was when you started except now you have bags of free space to start filling up!
Good luck, if anybody needs any help I’m sure those of us that have already taken the plunge will do what we can.
P.S. The war with the silver screws is over, the physical scars will fade but the emotional scars will be with me forever.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Wow, I don’t want to change my HDD but this this was entertaining. I read trough the whole thing, laughing out laud many times
October 16th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Nice guide, clear enough to win my fears… HDD upgrade soon!!!
colossalblue Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Don’t imagine it’s hassle free, those silver screws are a nightmare, I can not overstate just what a bitch they are to remove!
piekat Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
ok, thanks for the warning
BerackyWack Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I could not agree more with colossalblue!! those blasted screws are a nightmare! when i upgraded it was soo easy n going so well but those blasted screws!!! but having a bigger hdd is well worth it. i only got a mesly 160gb but its great not to have to worry when downloading demos n videos.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Evil screws indeed. If you ring Sony and tell them you’ve fucked up the caddy they’ll send another one out though, although not being calling you a wally.
wilboss Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Yup, when I replaced my HDD the screwheads ripped to bits and would not come out for love nor money
Phoned Sony and they sent me out a replacement caddy and screw set, though I did have to wait 8 WEEKS for it!
nofi Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Yeah, mine was about 6 weeks.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Nice tutorial.
I’ve gotta say I had the ‘cack the pants’ feeling when I upgraded my hdd all those months ago. All the tutorials at that time told you the system would automatically detect the new hdd and format it without any extra messing around. Even the manual said this! It was only through some deep googling that I found the solution.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
very informative tutorial
but still sata 2,5 hdd are pretty expensive
btw will sata2 work too?
but uhm
192.168.1.101 if i am correct
better erase it next time
nofi Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
it’s just his internal IP, doesn’t matter one iota.
karlsquell Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
well it pretty much does cause as far as i know the outer ip is the ip of your router and hes forwarding all info to the pc that demands it. if you got also the internal ip you can actually access.
i guess.
gotta read on that one.
colossalblue Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
You are correct, I hope my other networked PCs don’t try to hack me! It’s just internal and pretty generic, that’s this PCs address on my router, not my real IP address. The MAC pixelation worked at least!
Not sure on the SATA2 question, I’m not that savvy with PC components these days but my 320GB 2.5″ SATA drive cost £55 from Mplex (I think they might be N.I. only but google them ,they’re cheap and good and might deliver.) which is not that much more than a new game would cost. I was pretty pleased with the price.
nofi Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
“Installation of your sytem software should begin when it’s finsihed formatting.”
Fix your typos, dude, there’s at least 3 in that one sentence alone.
colossalblue Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Ok, all should be fixed now.
I have nightmares about that “it’s - its” business. Everything else is just lazy typing I think.
Michael Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Don’t get me started. DON’T.
biobas69 Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
sataII is fine, i have installed the following
Seagate 160GB 2.5″ Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache
was a bit worried the faster speed might create heating problems, but havnt had any issues yet and its at least 5months since i installed it.
karlsquell Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
thanks.
good to know
October 16th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Is there an upper limit on the HD size you can use? I’m just thinking if your gonna do, best to get the biggest you can…
October 16th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
If there is then nobody has found it yet. I’ve read of people fitting 500GB drives, haven’t seen a 1TB drive on a PS3 yet but I would imagine it’s theoretically possible if you can find one for sale and afford to buy it!
October 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
just a quick note
a better piece of software for formatting to fat32 for the external hdd is
compuapps - swissknife,
http://www.compuapps.com/download/Swissknife/swissknife.htm
i foind this much better for formatting.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Hey - nice guide, I upgraded to 320gb a month or so again and found that you can beat those b*st*rd screws if you take it very very slow but the scariest part for me was a couple of days later when booting up I got a ‘disc drive not correct’ error message…
Fortunately a restart booted up okay but it’s happened a couple more times since - anybody else get that?
Other than that - am loving being able to throw any instal, demo, music etc etc onto it and not see it blink.
Would highly recommend upgrading but just don’t try and rush it (or attempt it late at night after a bottle of good red wine!?)…
nofi Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Yeah, I got that a couple of times after changing my HDD. It’s fine now though.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Hehehe… “When you get your PS3 HDD swapped and booted up for the first time. It causes sudden relaxation of the anal muscles.”
Great guide! Swapped my drive for a couple of months ago. 40 GB -> 120 GB, and I still got storage room left in there. Sweet!!
October 16th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
The screws were a b*tch but the satistfaction/surprise of turning it back on and it working was incredible, well done Sony!
Did anyone notice something like this… I put a 250gb drive in there, the ps3 says its capacity is 243gb (fair enough we all know about that) buuuut without even putting so much as a saved game on the hard drive the system info said only 214gb was free. Anyone know what thats about?
October 16th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
so if i wanted to update my 60GB i would have to buy a HDD and an external HDD for the backups that is less than 38GB cos i don’t wanna piss about formatting it.. UNLESS mac’s can do it better?
The i have to wrestle with screws (sounds like the silver ones are posidrives which look like Phillips but are different)
i really would like to update my HDD as i’m about half full on my 60GB, but i don’t want to go through the hastle and i have no monies
colossalblue Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I thought Posidrives had little diagonal nicks in the screw head?
Anyway, you need an external HD to backup, they’re really easy to format using the tool I linked to which downloads in a few seconds. Macs probably can do it better, I don’t know, google it and there’s sure to be info.
The screws are a bugger but if you have the right screwdriver you’re one step closer. If you really can’t get the screws out then do what I suggested in a post further down, ring Sony and tell them you broke the caddy and wait for them to send a new one.
Spotter5 Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
They do.. do the evil silver ones have that?
Where did you get you external HDD and internal HDD from an how much did it cost?
colossalblue Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
No, the evil screws are just little crosses.
I got my 2.5″ SATA from Mplex for £55, the external is an old IDE from my previous PC setup in an external housing from Maplin.
http://www.mplex.com/category-74.html
You can get External disks really cheap now (relatively) from Maplin or even PC World. I think they’re even cheaper in the US so it mgiht be worth looking on ebay. You would even get away with a 32GB USB stick if you don’t have too much data on your HDD. Don’t forget you can transfer a lot of the data off before you back up, Music, videos and game saves can all be moved via USB stick to your PC, saving space on the final backup.
I’m surprised there aren’t shops offering to do this for you, like all those little independant PC upgrade shops.
Spotter5 Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
cool, i’ll look into it.. just gotta get my student loan in first :/
mcphatty Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Mate, don’t worry about getting the external hard drive. I just put my saved games on a usb stick then downloaded everything again, it doesn’t take long in the end… unless you can’t be fussed with lectures anymore and desperately need the pzzthree for amusement
Saves you some money too, and you could get an external enclosure for the hard drive you take out of the playstation! Don’t get the icybox black one though, didnt work for me. Good luck with the loan, i’m a year in to paying it back, i just call it student tax now!
Spotter5 Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I could do that, but i really couldn’t be bothered re downloading warhawk, the socom beta, as well as re intalling all my games and then downloading all those Gt5 updates and videos
good name for the loans.. student tax
will have to remember that ;D
mcphatty Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I have a super cheap idea! I’m so bored at work I came up with this…
Get an 8gb sony usb stick from play.com for 11 quid, bargain. Copy movies, music and pics accross to your pc using that. Then when you’ve got less than 8gb left on the ps3 do a backup onto the usb stick! I guess that Warhawk, SOCOM and updates from a few games can’t be more than 8 gigs? If they are ignore me
October 16th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I can’t get the screws out =(. 320GB Hard Drive sitting in a box and I can’t f’n put the thing in!
This is also REALLY annoying as I just got Bioshock, reducing my 13 free gigabytes to a mere 8 (5GB install…).
With LBP due next week, and level creation in mind… I will need to get the buggers out!
colossalblue Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I’ve got a cunning plan.
Ring Sony Customer Support and tell them you’ve frigged the whole thing trying to get you HDD out. They’ll send you a new caddy, takes about 6-8 weeks if posters above are typical. When it arrives slip out the old one, put your new HDD in the new one and upgrade away!
Dafro1989 Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I’m really tempted to do this…
320GB (minus a hefty chunk for system info and whatever I already have) at my disposal, and I can’t even use it. LAME.
ManeoriX Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
If you stripped the 4 screws, you could always use a pairs of pliers. I had stripped them beyond recognition, and was not happy. But using a pair of pliers is much simpler and very easy, mine came off in no time.
That way you don’t have to wait 6-8 weeks.
Hope that helped
October 16th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
one BIG question, when you do your back up and stuff.. when you are finished and everything is working will it scrap all of your trophies. this is a worry for me after all my time and effort getting them.???? please reply, I need help
colossalblue Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
No, all your trophy info is online rather than stored on your machine. When you restore your backup your trophies won’t show up from the “Game” section of the XMB (although they will still be visible to your online friends etc.), you have to go to “Account Management” in the PSN option of your XMB and activate your machine again. I had to de-activate it and then activate it to get it to work properly but then once you start each of your trophy games they will appear in your “Game” section on the XMB again.
Speedyduck36 Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
thanks :), getting a 320gb then.
October 16th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
The exact size of the Philips screwdriver is a 1 inch Philips…it works well…
October 16th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Also if anyone does have a problem with the screws being on too tight and don’t want to strip them….take it to an Electronics store (one that fixes, DVDs, TVs, etc)…they will do it for a small charge.
colossalblue Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
good advice, thanks
October 17th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Do we HAVE to remove the silver screws? Can’t you just remove the blue screen, then slide the HDD out, and put a new HDD in?
colossalblue Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
You have to remove the evil silver screws because they hold the HDD in the caddy that makes it fit snugly inside your PS3. No caddy, no fit.
October 17th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I swapped my HDD about 4 months ago and got 250 GB. When I bought the new HDD I also bought a casing for the old 60 GB HDD (which basically turns it into an external drive). The casing is called an ICYBOX but I don’t remember the modelnumber. The casing came with a screwdriver that didn’t fit the screws on the casing at all - but it fit *perfectly* with the screws on the PS3. And then they weren’t a problem.
Had a bit of a scary moment when the PS3 didn’t recognize the new HDD the first time I booted, but the old Microsoft solution (reboot and hope it fixes itself) took care of it.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Was a good guide, except the external hdd i used wouldnt let me restore after the drives had been swapped, and i accidently rounded the screws in the caddy. Lost resistance 2 beta (at 3gig i cant be fussed redownloading) and lbp game save with story mode complete ._. oh well i guess back to the drawing board..
Garanz Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Ah, fixed my own problem. Hardware store didnt have a clue how to fix it so i bought a small metal file and did it that way, using a little hand-saw didnt do anything. Hopefully anyone that rounds their screws reads this ^_^
November 11th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I upgraded mine a few weeks ago (from 40gig to 120 gig)
It picked up my system back up but when it rebooted it said it couldn’t find it… after 4 tries to restore the backup I unplugged it and plugged it back in before I had to press X to carry on restoring the data and it worked