Hacking Difficulty figuring out how to load games from external HDD

[lmntathffan]

I'm having trouble figuring out if/how I can load games directly from an external HDD using multiman. I'm using the kmeaw CFW, and I know that I can copy games from an external HDD to an internal HDD, but I don't know how to directly load an external HDD. Can anyone provide me with some insight before I go out and buy a 2tb paperweight?

 

[Fun_Zephyr]

Copy your games into the USB:\games\FolderName or USB:\gamez\FolderName

FolderName = a sub folder of your choice for each game

Multiman looks in both places automatically so when you start multi man it detects all games on the internal and external drive at a the same time. As far as I know you can only play games from a fat32 formatted drive

 

[lmntathffan]

Alright. Also, how do I recognize the PS3 game when I download a backup copy? For example, I downloaded MvC3 but I can't tell which parts of the folder I downloaded belong to the game, so I'm not sure what to copy onto my USB drive.

 

[Originality]

Inside the "subfolder", you should see two more folders and a file. Example:

USB:\GAMES\BCES00050-[Folklore]\PS3_GAME\...
USB:\GAMES\BCES00050-[Folklore]\PS3_UPDATE\...
USB:\GAMES\BCES00050-[Folklore]\PS3_DISC.SFB

Sometimes if you download it, the UPDATE folder will be missing in an effort to save space (PS3UPDAT.PUP is usually around 262MB). In any case, as long as the game is in that folder structure, backup managers should automatically detect them and run fine. If you have it in a second subfolder (e.g. USB:\GAMES\GameName\ThisIsMyGame\PS3_GAME\...) then it won't be seen.

As an additional note, the game folder names does not have to include the ID code - it's just how I've got my games set up because that's the naming style MultiMAN uses when backing up my legit games. Also if the folder name starts with an underscore (e.g. USB:\GAMES\_MRTC00003-[Final Fantasy XIII]\PS3_GAME\...) then MultiMAN will have the game greyed out in the list as it's a game with split files inside and won't run from the external drive.

A method does exist to get split games to work on the external drive, but it's too complicated to get into detail and I prefer just copying those games onto the internal drive - it all works.

 

[lmntathffan]

Thank you very much for your response! The last question I have is whether or not games can be copied from the physical disc in the system onto an external hard drive, or can they only be copied to the internal hard drive. I currently don't have an HDD large enough to test out whether this is possible or not.

 

[Zorua]

Thank you very much for your response! The last question I have is whether or not games can be copied from the physical disc in the system onto an external hard drive, or can they only be copied to the internal hard drive. I currently don't have an HDD large enough to test out whether this is possible or not.

They can only be copied to the internal hard drive.

 

[Originality]

Thank you very much for your response! The last question I have is whether or not games can be copied from the physical disc in the system onto an external hard drive, or can they only be copied to the internal hard drive. I currently don't have an HDD large enough to test out whether this is possible or not.

They can only be copied to the internal hard drive.

Actually, you're wrong. When you press O (circle) to copy a game in MultiMAN (I never tried with Gaia but I believe it's the same), it will first ask you if you want to copy to the internal HDD. If you select No, it will ask you again if you want to copy to USB0. I believe if you have a second USB drive inserted and you select No, it will ask you if you want to copy to USB1 (I'm too lazy to confirm that, since I typically just use 1 USB drive anyway).

I've done this with every game I own (and FF13 which I don't own but have borrowed for a while now and haven't been able to return it yet). It's annoying having to go through the prompt twice to copy to USB, but meh. At least I never have to take the discs out of their cases anymore.

EDIT: Might aswell mention, some games can fit on a 4GB USB stick.

 

[lmntathffan]

Hopefully these should be my last questions (and on a side note, I'd like to thank you all for your patience and helpfulness). Based on the input I've received, I went out and bought a WD 1TB hdd and went home to install some games. I was frustrated to find that the drive cannot be operated in FAT32 format, and can only run in NTFS. I tried following the instructions under the main PS3 CFW installation guide (http://gbatemp.net/t280915-ps3-softmod-guide) but the process was not successful... I believe part of this may be due to the fact that the guide asks for the "Volume number" of the drive, and I wasn't sure how to determine it. My questions, then, are first how I can figure out what my drive's volume number would be, and, if that proves unsuccessful, if there is any way to format the hard drive from NTFS to FAT32? Any additional advice or input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Tonitonichopchop]

Hopefully these should be my last questions (and on a side note, I'd like to thank you all for your patience and helpfulness). Based on the input I've received, I went out and bought a WD 1TB hdd and went home to install some games. I was frustrated to find that the drive cannot be operated in FAT32 format, and can only run in NTFS. I tried following the instructions under the main PS3 CFW installation guide (http://gbatemp.net/t280915-ps3-softmod-guide) but the process was not successful... I believe part of this may be due to the fact that the guide asks for the "Volume number" of the drive, and I wasn't sure how to determine it. My questions, then, are first how I can figure out what my drive's volume number would be, and, if that proves unsuccessful, if there is any way to format the hard drive from NTFS to FAT32? Any additional advice or input would be greatly appreciated.

I'm pretty sure there is a program that would let you format it. Don't remember what it is though.

 

[Cyan]

Windows partitioning and formating tools are restricting the Partition size to 32GB, but FAT32 can go up to 2.2TB.
You can try with FAT32Format (MSDos command line), or WiiBackupManager's format option (check our Wii hacking forum).

About the NTFS disk volume, it wasn't really understandable, just leave it to 1.

Just note that you can't play on NTFS external HDD, it's only used to transfer the game between PCNTFSInternal PS3 without the need to split big files.
To play on external drive, you need a FAT32 external HDD.

 

[Originality]

I thought NTFS was read-only so far, so it should be PC NTFS->PS3 (i.e. backing up physical media onto the external HDD would be impossible on NTFS).

 

[Cyan]

oh, hmm, you're right

I remembered only the "copy only" function, but forgot it was single sided.