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Just type in 2.5" Sata Hard drive, it doesn't matter if it says PS3 compatiable or not, all HDD's of that type are.

A good place to start is Amazon

I am finally getting a new hard drive for Christmas, but I am extremely nervous about backing up my PS3. And I am quite confused about how to do it.

1) First off, I bought this external hard drive. Is that OK?

2) Second, how do I find out what format the hard drive is in – FAT32 or NTFS. And how would I change it if it was NTFS?

3) And what is all this stuff about partitioning? I have used about 36GB of my 40GB hard drive.

4) Then how do I get (ie where do I save it to), and why do I need the latest firmware on my laptop?

5) And finally what does all this mean (it was posted in the original guide):

'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.'

'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'

Thanks in advance to anyone who can stop laughing at me long enough to answer my questions.

Post edited 6:43 pm – December 19, 2009 by Dexter17

theshockwave said:Anybody? It's getting nearer to Christmas…

Sorry Shockwave, I would if I could, but I really don't know a single thing about this kind of thing.

P.S – All the information that I had about hard-drives was stored within my thinking-cap, so unless you want to journey to the centre of the earth to get it back, you can't get any help from me.

So there.

Heh – Shockwave, your saviour has come!

hey there shockwave,

I have the same HDD so you'll need this http://www.compuapps.com/Downl…..sknife.htm to convert your external. It is straight forward and it takes seconds to convert here's a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..NVuqNwza-g.

Note: You'll have to convert your hdd back to NTFS if you want to use the seagate backup utility software that it came with though.

Also: and here is a video that could help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..uyQPW3bDS0

theshockwave said: I really appreciate it.

No you don't. If you really did appreciate it you would have given them some biscuits, but did you? No. You went and ate them all. Again.

I just can't get the blue screw to come off. If I can get it out, does it matter if I break it? Is the blue screw important?

I bought myself a caddy to re-use my old 60gb PS3 HDD but my XP running PC doesn't see it? It hasn't been formated since I removed it from the PS3, does anyone have a solution for me? Disk Management and swissknife do not see it either. Any help would be appreciated.

A quick google, and it looks like people have only got past this error by re-formatting their HDD.

But since you're replacing the disk anyway, we might as well try a couple things quickly. So it sounds like time to put your PS3 into recovery mode, rebuild the file system and the database… First things first, though, backup all your saves you can manually. Obviously locked saves won't be do-able (and AC2 is one of those locked games), neither is game data, but trophies and your friends list is kept on PSN's servers. Just make sure to sync your trophies.
Second things second, do you have an older backup of your HDD? it'd be useful just in case as a jumping off point to restore a lot of the game data and whatnot automatically…

So, I don't know if you know about recovery mode, but here's a quick guide:

1. Turn off PS3.
2. Press and hold power button. Wait for system to turn on, and then off again. It beeps 3 times, once every 3 seconds or so during this.
3. When it turns back off, press and hold the power button again. Wait for two beeps as above and then two quick beeps, then release.
4. Connect controller via USB cable and press the PS button.
5. Welcome to recovery mode.

Rebuild your file system first, then rebuild the database. You won't lose anything 99.9% of the time, but any files that went missing from a corrupted file system will be back, anything that was inaccessible by GameOS without error will be accessible again, and nothing further will get messed up.

After that, which might take a while, fingers crossed you should be able to delete the corrupted data you had and backup your HDD. If not, though, then you've still got all your save game files and (fingers crossed) an older backup to use.

Since AC2 is a locked save, though, you might want to finish the game and platinum it, if you haven't already, before doing all this.

I've got my fingers crossed, so good luck.