Every time Sony push out an update to their PS3’s system software, someone, somewhere loses an eye, a puppy explodes, a building falls down and somebody’s PS3 goes a bit wonky. It’s all Sony’s fault. The latest update, which adds a ‘you may also like’ feature to the PlayStation Store, is also, apparently, preventing users from upgrading their hard drives.
What appears to be happening, judging from comments on the official forums, is that users with 3.41 installed aren’t able to upgrade their hard drive – the PS3 tells them they need to have 3.41 on removable storage media, but half way through the update process it’s saying “no applicable update data was found” and hence getting trapped in an endless loop.
Sony don’t think it’s related. “We apologize for any inconvenience you are experiencing with upgrading [your] Internal Hard Disc Drive on your PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system,” says a rather formal statement. “The information available to our Consumer Services Department does not suggest that this is a problem PlayStation owners are likely to experience when upgrading the HDD with [the] 3.41 update.”
“Sony Computer Entertainment America strongly supports the quality of its products and backs them with full confidence,” it continues, before asking that the user updates the previous hard drive first, which apparently fixes the issue. It’s all a bit confusing, and perhaps, just perhaps, related to this.
burnoutuk
Some people seem to be missing the point a bit.
Users affected by this cannot update via an external drive/stick. The upgrade doesn’t complete.
Oh well. Popped my old 80gb drive back in until I hear they’ve fixed the problem.
squashme
youll be waitin a long time aas it looks like sony are not taking responibility for it
Raider197
Completely off-topic, but what do the [ ] mean when quoting something? For example in this article it says “when upgrading the HDD with [the] 3.41 update.”
nofi
In this case they mean that the word in brackets was missing in the quotation and added by us for readability.
squashme
i like you puttin them in make things more readable some sites are so stupid missin important words and makin sentances unreadable lol
R1MJAW
@DJ-Katy (because for some reason I can’t reply directly). If that’s the case, then why, when I upgraded the HDD in my original 60Gb, did I not have to install any firmware, whereas I did when I upgraded the HDD in my 80Gb that I have now.
squashme
software updates are not installed on the hdd why people understand that (thats not directly at you btw) (pls dnt take offencce ill b good) lol they installed on a seperate memory module for security reasons (like viruses from the net they cant ifnect the PS3 OS XMB) but now it looks the updates are jus patches with the new features (if you can call them that lol) its not the whole update direct from the PS3 like it is from the website
Sambuque
“The PS3 has 256 megabytes of flash memory to store firmware, using two NAND 128MB Samsung flash chips. The installed firmware data is interleaved between the two flash chips for speed. To prevent errors, Error Correcting Code (ECC) Checksum is added/used on the data in the PS3 flash chips. In newer PS3, a single 16MB Spansion flash chip is used.
Because of the smaller flash chips in later versions, newer firmware versions allow for the firmware data to be partially stored on the harddrive (instead of totally inside the firmware), making the flash purely responsible for holding data involved in the critical booting up process. This allows for cheaper flash chips, while using the harddrive for later bootup stages.”
source with motherboard shot and chip serial: http://www.edepot.com/playstation3.html
Kennykazey
If this is the case, then I’m glad I upgraded when I did, which was not long before the update.
jk1993
Believe me if you want, but I know what causes these update issues. It’s people not treating their PS3s properly. Most people are used to PS2s and turn the PS3 off at the back. This immediately cuts power to the hard drive and blu-ray drive, and can seriously damage the PS3. My friend did this and what do you know? The next time he updated his PS3 it stopped working properly. This is just my opinion but each model of a particular SKU is identical and there’s no reason for some to crash and others not to.
Divine
and that’s kinda bollocks really, cause my PS3 is only a week old. Tried a new 500GB Seagate Monentus in there and I’m having the 3.41 update issues. I’ve never had any FW issues before this either, that’s not to say people with this problem are totally inept. I’ve upgraded six different hard drives on six different consoles before this and never had a problem. SONY reps are talking shit!
Divine
There are too many people experiencing this problem for there not to be an issue. No way has everyone’s hardware been corrupting that update data during installation as SONY suggests. Total crap.
Someone please tell me they’ve successfully upgraded a PSSlim’s HDD since 3.41?
syson
I have upgraded my HDD before and everything worked out ok for me.
pvwradtke
Mine hanged 4 times in a row while playing a video off the HDD. Played Joe Danger just fine, but played a video and the system crashed. Had to turn off the switch at the back so that it could reboot. Last time it didn’t (hanged on the PS3 wave), let’s hope it will boot back the next try.
SmokeyPSD
luckiy I don’t need to upgrade a hhd anytime soon :(
JKL6939
the real truth behind the firmware 3.41 is that Sony has added a new DRM protection feature with Cinavia DRM Protection as an automatic PS3 download. It is to create an audio watermark that will target pirates for movies. Detailed on the official site, Cinavia works in a way that it compares the “source of the audio to the format in which a movie was released, and if the watermarked audio source detects a difference, the movie will either be mute or not work at all.