Hacking External hard drive plugged in during jailbreak

viper3344 · Apr 11, 2021

Hey everybody.

What is the thought on leaving external HDD's with games installed on them connected during the JB process? Do KP's have the chance of corrupting the data?

The alternative is to keep them unplugged, run the JB, run HEN, then plug them back in. This results in a (checking external hdd) screen when launching the first pkg after HEN that can take up to 5 min but not the end of the world as all games installed on the external run after just that first check.

Thoughts on this?

KiiWii · Apr 11, 2021

I found early on in the 4.xx/5.05 days that having nothing plugged in helped the JB process. No idea why though.

Nowadays 6.72+ has various things in to make jailbreak more difficult (such as update blocker removal, and DB check) so it’s probably the same reason you have to rescan everything you each time.

godreborn · Apr 11, 2021

that's why I leave mine plugged in. it takes too long imo to scan the hdd if you leave it unplugged until after doing hen.

KiiWii · Apr 11, 2021

godreborn said:
that's why I leave mine plugged in. it takes too long imo to scan the hdd if you leave it unplugged until after doing hen.

I have like 1 game and 5-10 apps installed (testing for devs), so I never use an external

godreborn · Apr 11, 2021

KiiWii said:
I have like 1 game and 5-10 apps installed (testing for devs), so I never use an external

someone on here has like 1,400 games installed. my god! I'd be pissed if the hdds ever failed. that's what happened to a ps3 and a 360 external hdd. I lost about 700 games or more. I managed to salvage the other two external hdds, and back them up four times to my 10TB hdds (have 8 of them).

I've never had an internal fail, and my 360 phat one is like 12 years old.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I have about 3TBs of games installed on a 5TB hdd. nothing is installed on the internal (2TB). I only installed like four games from 7.55 and 2 from 7.02. that's all I cared about.

KiiWii · Apr 11, 2021

godreborn said:
someone on here has like 1,400 games installed. my god! I'd be pissed if the hdds ever failed. that's what happened to a ps3 and a 360 external hdd. I lost about 700 games or more. I managed to salvage the other two external hdds, and back them up four times to my 10TB hdds (have 8 of them). I've never had an internal fail, and my 360 phat one is like 12 years old.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I have about 3TBs of games installed on a 5TB hdd. nothing is installed on the internal (2TB). I only installed like four games from 7.55 and 2 from 7.02. that's all I cared about.

I don’t think I have ever had any games above 6.72 lol.

godreborn · Apr 11, 2021

KiiWii said:
I don’t think I have ever had any games above 6.72 lol.

I think I have around 90 games or so total. however, I never play them. sony pissed me off so much over the past week with their ps store issues (trying to go legit on the ps3) that I may never go legit again with one of their systems.

viper3344 · Apr 11, 2021

godreborn said:
I think I have around 90 games or so total. however, I never play them. sony pissed me off so much over the past week with their ps store issues (trying to go legit on the ps3) that I may never go legit again with one of their systems.

So even with a KP while trying to do the exploit, does it run the risk of corrupting the external drive at all? I mean I know it rescans the internal and boots up just find after KP's but there any risk of damaging the external during a hack attempt and KP?

godreborn · Apr 11, 2021

possibly, but I don't know. all I know is that neither has gotten corrupted or failed for me.

viper3344 · Apr 11, 2021

KiiWii said:
I found early on in the 4.xx/5.05 days that having nothing plugged in helped the JB process. No idea why though.

Nowadays 6.72+ has various things in to make jailbreak more difficult (such as update blocker removal, and DB check) so it’s probably the same reason you have to rescan everything you each time.

Well I only have to rescan if I boot with the drive unplugged. I think this is really the same even for retail. If you boot the ps4 without the external the game icons give a "!" indicating that the game resides on an external plugged in. Now when you plug it in and launch the game it just "verifies" When you reboot it doesnt need to do that. Interesting

viper3344 · Apr 12, 2021

Yeah I mean logic dictates that a KP shouldn't really touch any USB external data but wondering if anyone has heard anything otherwise.. Thanks!

viper3344 · Apr 13, 2021

OK!!! UPDATE!

Got a KP doing another jailbreak from a cold boot and after checking the internal, it said the external HDD needed to be checked and took a long time.

NOPE. Too risky for me. Going to always unplug while attempting the JB.

KiiWii · Apr 13, 2021

viper3344 said:
Yeah I mean logic dictates that a KP shouldn't really touch any USB external data but wondering if anyone has heard anything otherwise.. Thanks!

I have a hunch the kernel exploit does touch the USB for some reason.

viper3344 · Apr 14, 2021

Yeah... so to be on the safe side I suggest we do NOT have our HDD's plugged in when launching the exploit. I know it takes awhile for it to detect and load but better safe than sorry. My 4TB external filled to the brim takes about 5 min to fully detect. Small price to pay I guess

viper3344 · Apr 19, 2021

Ok so filled up a 4tb external. After running the exploit, I plug in the external. Timed it at 6 minutes before I could launch games. So figure about 6 min every 4tb of data installed. Not horrible. Go make a coffee haha

kid sampson · Feb 25, 2022

@viper3344 Just wanted to check in and see if you are still plugging in your extended storage after the JB or have since resorted to leaving it connected?

Tomtani1 · Feb 25, 2022

kid sampson said:
@viper3344 Just wanted to check in and see if you are still plugging in your extended storage after the JB or have since resorted to leaving it connected?

Recently I had to deal with this problem. I am on fw 9.00 and doing the goldhen jailbreak with my extended storage connected. In a span of several days I got two kernel panics during the jailbreaking process. After the PS4 restarts, I was forced to scan my extenal storage. After the scan the PS4 slowly load up all of the games. However, all of the DLCs do not show up. I read that it is because of the addcont.db blanking and there are python scripts that can restore the hidden DLCs. I decided to manually install all 370 fpkg DLC files again. Then I did a DB Backup. Hopefully I can do a DB Restore the next time to restore everything back to normal.

I had considered unmounting the external storage prior to power off. The next time I power on the PS4 and after successful goldhen jailbreaking, I then connect the external storage. The big downside is it will take about 10 minutes to load up the games before I can play.

I decided to go with the route of just leaving the external storage always connected and having a DB Backup just in case of the kernel panic and the DLCs not showing. I can just do the DB Restore.

grabman · Feb 25, 2022

Tomtani1 said:
Recently I had to deal with this problem. I am on fw 9.00 and doing the goldhen jailbreak with my extended storage connected. In a span of several days I got two kernel panics during the jailbreaking process. After the PS4 restarts, I was forced to scan my extenal storage. After the scan the PS4 slowly load up all of the games. However, all of the DLCs do not show up. I read that it is because of the addcont.db blanking and there are python scripts that can restore the hidden DLCs. I decided to manually install all 370 fpkg DLC files again. Then I did a DB Backup. Hopefully I can do a DB Restore the next time to restore everything back to normal.

I had considered unmounting the external storage prior to power off. The next time I power on the PS4 and after successful goldhen jailbreaking, I then connect the external storage. The big downside is it will take about 10 minutes to load up the games before I can play.

I decided to go with the route of just leaving the external storage always connected and having a DB Backup just in case of the kernel panic "wiping away" all my DLCs.

just going to go ahead and give the actual answers.

As my collection grew quite large (over 5tb on external storage) it became frustrating to remove it and have the ps4 do the "check". This is not to be confused with app2usb storage. This is specifically drives formatted by the ps4 standard process. There is no need to remove the drive. What I would recommend is yes having saves backed up. The db. Heck if you have a REALLY big usb storage device back up the whole drive using the standard sony process. fpkg can be backed up. Just run hen first. Keep your fpkg backed up as well I would say. But in terms of corrupt data I must have kp 1000's of times with external storage connected. After powering back on I was fine. I attribute this to my using externally powered usb hd as external storage. Much better than what has been stated in terms of handing this once you get to large data.

now to the issue of dissappearing dlc. this is a missunderstanding. the dlc is there. when this issue first appeared i did not have things like lapy file manager. You do have this now and can prove to yourself by checking the addcont dirs. the data has become what i would refer to as "deauthorized" this data is ill gotten gains. You have fpkg dlc.

This is easily fixed. Simply run hen. Then unplug the usb external storage device without properly removing it. Then reconnect and run a repair. Look for the hdd icon in top right of screen. It will flash. Once it is done flashing you will notice your dlc has returned. What you have posted is a confusion of what is happening. This knowledge is there for those who can read and grasp it.

viper3344 · Mar 1, 2022

kid sampson said:
@viper3344 Just wanted to check in and see if you are still plugging in your extended storage after the JB or have since resorted to leaving it connected?

I leave it plugged in when in rest mode but unplug it during reboots.

kid sampson · Mar 1, 2022

viper3344 said:
I leave it plugged in when in rest mode but unplug it during reboots.

Do you also leave the JB USB drive unplugged before/after jailbreaking? Or is that always plugged into one of the available USB ports?

Hacking External hard drive plugged in during jailbreak

Well-Known Member

Editorial Team

Welcome to the Machine

Editorial Team

Welcome to the Machine

Editorial Team

Welcome to the Machine

Well-Known Member

Welcome to the Machine

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Editorial Team

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum