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Forums - Sony Discussion - Putting an old HD in a new PS3 without formatting

ghettoglamour on 30 May 2012

Hi people, I have a problem I hope you can help me to solve.

My old PS3 had a Bluray drive failure and won't recognize any discs anymore. For other things it still works.

Now I bought a new PS3 and tried to boot up the system with my old HD in it, but it forces me to format it. (I have the newest firmware on USB device, this is not the issue)

Are there any options to use my old HD in the new PS3 without losing my data? I know there's an option for transferring data from one PS3 to another but this is not possible because my HD is 500gb and the standard one in the new PS3 is only 160gb.

I need some help, please :)



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homer on 30 May 2012

Back it up in an external drive. You have to reformat it no matter what. You are going to have to back up your data because you have to reformat.



"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." -My good friend Mark Aurelius

TeddostheFireKing on 30 May 2012

As far as I'm aware, once you put a new hard drive into a PS3, it will ask you to format it immediately and you won't be able to choose what else you can do :/

I would've suggested connecting your old PS3 to your new PS3 via ethernet to transfer your files over if you don't have an external hard drive. But this is not an option now :/



Gilgamesh on 30 May 2012

Back everything up. I lost everything but my saves (thank god I been regularly copying them to my usb.



ghettoglamour on 30 May 2012

Ok thanks guys. Now I only need to find a 500gb external HD...But why the hell does it format the HD?? If it works on a PS3 system, it should work on another. Makes no sense to me, and I'm a computer programmer...



Game of the year 2017 so far:

5. Resident Evil VII
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
3. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
2. Horizon Zero Dawn
1. Super Mario Odyssey

Around the Network
ghettoglamour on 30 May 2012
Bristow9091 said:

What I THINK you can do however (I'm pretty sure my friend did this, or something very similar), is buy an external HDD enclosure for your old PS3 HDD, use that to back it up onto your PC, then once it's all on your PC, put the 500GB HDD into the new PS3, let it format and stuff, once that's in happily, you should be able to put the 160GB HDD into the external enclosure , and use that to transfer data from your PC to your PS3, you'll obviously need to do it in multiple transfers due to the size of it though.


Yes, that's how I tranferred my data from my original 80gb HD to my current one. You don't even need to back it up onto a PC, you back it up directly from your PS3 to the external HD, then build in the new HD into the PS3 and let it format it and finally copy your stuff from the external device to the new HD.

That's how I gotta do it now, but I thought I could just put my current HD into the new PS3, I see no reason why this shouldn't work...



Game of the year 2017 so far:

5. Resident Evil VII
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
3. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
2. Horizon Zero Dawn
1. Super Mario Odyssey

cusman on 30 May 2012

When I upgraded my 60GB to 500GB, I had used an external drive to backup then I swapped the drives and then I did a restore. It was the same PS3.

I am not sure how you go from one PS3 to another.



Lafiel on 30 May 2012
ghettoglamour said:
Ok thanks guys. Now I only need to find a 500gb external HD...But why the hell does it format the HD?? If it works on a PS3 system, it should work on another. Makes no sense to me, and I'm a computer programmer...

it's part of their copy/pirating protection

every PS3 has it's own internal code which it uses when formating the HDD, so that only that one can use the data - other PS3s can't access the data



ghettoglamour on 31 May 2012
Bristow9091 said:
ghettoglamour said:
Bristow9091 said:

What I THINK you can do however (I'm pretty sure my friend did this, or something very similar), is buy an external HDD enclosure for your old PS3 HDD, use that to back it up onto your PC, then once it's all on your PC, put the 500GB HDD into the new PS3, let it format and stuff, once that's in happily, you should be able to put the 160GB HDD into the external enclosure , and use that to transfer data from your PC to your PS3, you'll obviously need to do it in multiple transfers due to the size of it though.


Yes, that's how I tranferred my data from my original 80gb HD to my current one. You don't even need to back it up onto a PC, you back it up directly from your PS3 to the external HD, then build in the new HD into the PS3 and let it format it and finally copy your stuff from the external device to the new HD.

That's how I gotta do it now, but I thought I could just put my current HD into the new PS3, I see no reason why this shouldn't work...

But the way you say it sort it makes it seem like you'd buy a 500GB external HDD... whereas you can just buy an encloser, they're like £5-10, and put your 160GB HDD in it, it's cheaper, and the only difference is you'll have to make more trips transferring data... although I guess for practicality it's easier just to buy a whole new external HDD, and then it becomes handy in the future too...

Hell no, I won't buy a 500gb external HDD, it costs at least 100 swiss francs here. Just to compare, the PS3 cost me 250...so no :)

I hope I find something big enough I can borrow at work.



Game of the year 2017 so far:

5. Resident Evil VII
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
3. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
2. Horizon Zero Dawn
1. Super Mario Odyssey

Chevinator123 on 31 May 2012

Cant be done, buying another 500gb hard drive is the only option or loose everything