Hacking PS3 HDD cloned successfully

depaul · Mar 31, 2021

Hi. Just to share a method to clone PS3 internal HDD into a different drive. Please note both your HDDs must be identical in size.

1-Get your internal HDD from PS3 as well as the new HDD (or SSD). connect them to your PC.

WARNING : Don't initialize discs under Windows. Don't format or create any partition or else your encrypted HDD data will be lost.

2-Use a Raw cloning software. Most cloning Software won't work if the HDD is encrypted. I used HDD Raw Copy Tool.
https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/

3-Select your source (PS3) HDD and target (new) HDD. As you see my HDDs are identical in size. Cloning to a smaller HDD certainly won't work. Cloning to a bigger HDD might work.

It took for me 6 hours to clone the entire drive. Once finished, I tried the new HDD and it was recognized without problems!
So maybe PS3 encryption doesn't take HDD serial into account after all. I believe this method can work for PS4 as well! (Edit : Yes, this method works for PS3, PS4 and WiiU storage as well).

krueger96 · Apr 1, 2021

yup, did this with mine as well. i also suggest reinstalling the firmware once you do this, because the system was a bit slower with the cloned drive, reinstalling the fw fixed it

zfreeman · Apr 1, 2021

@depaul, do you notice if the responsiveness is faster? What is the temperature difference after switching from HDD to SSD?

Hayato213 · Apr 1, 2021

Yea you either have to use tools like hdd raw copy tool or use a docking station to make a copy but you need same size drive, think software like Aomei can adjust uninitialized drive but not 100% sure, same concept work for Nvidia Shield 500GB HDD model, where you can upgrade to a SSD.

djnate27 · Apr 1, 2021

Wish I had known this sooner. My PS3 60GB died many ago and I recently bought a Slim. I had to start all of my games over from scratch.

depaul · Apr 1, 2021

krueger96 said:
yup, did this with mine as well. i also suggest reinstalling the firmware once you do this, because the system was a bit slower with the cloned drive, reinstalling the fw fixed it

I agree it's a good idea since your games will remain intact and you won't need to reinstall them.

zfreeman said:
@depaul, do you notice if the responsiveness is faster? What is the temperature difference after switching from HDD to SSD?

Yes overall SSD is smoother experience: in menu, and many games benefit from SSD (for example Dark souls II in-game loading went from 14 to 6 seconds, Ultra Street Fighter 4 load faster, Gran Turismo 6...).

PS3 Super Slim is much quieter and with SSD I got rid from the HDD head noise.
If you plan to upgrade to an SSD just buy any cheap one and it will maximize your PS3 performance (Like WD green). You don't need to buy an expensive one.

yeshuachrist · Apr 27, 2021

(using windows 7 64bit, the 1tb ps3 hdd (seagate-ST1000LM035), and the new, 1tb WD Blue (1TB 3D NAND SATA III 2.5 in. Internal SSD), both did not identify with windows, but the program "HDD Raw Copy Tool", did detect both and cloned, in about 18 or so hours, at 16 megabytes a second) (not a top of the line PC) (some "sata to usb, connectors are incompatible, if your not lucky, but the "sata to usb/ssd" connectors , can be purchased separately)

(OLD PS3 HDD) 1tb Seagate Drive, connected to PC using "PNY SSD sata to usb connector, came from a 500 gb drive, also sold separately"

(NEW SSD) 1tb SSD WD Blue - connected to PC using the "seagate" portable connecter that has sata and usb on one side from the, original portable block i ripped apart, purchased from walmart, connected to PC
............................
Transfer took 18 hours + from my not so fast PC

HDD Raw Copy Tool Reported Drive Size:

Old Sata 1tb Drive == 1,953,525,168
New SSD 1tb Drive == 1,953,525,166

(you can see the new SSD drive is 2kb smaller in size)

Noticed no slowdown in menus, I will not be re flashing the firmware (after drive copy)
(superslim ps3 with hen installed, 4.86 HFW) (same amount of free space reported, games still launch)
(games also on external PNY 500 GB SSD also launch fine (ntsc format using webman)

The 1tb SSD WDBLUE, was 90$, 95$ after taxes from ebay, in new "lot", from seller.................its a good deal considering they are about 100 from amazon.com on average.................

depaul · Apr 28, 2021

Glad it worked.
If find that SSD is really worth it for AAA games. It easily cuts loading times in half.

yeshuachrist · Apr 28, 2021

makes a lot of games smoother........timesplitters 3 future perfect ps2, so the ps2 emulator also benefits...............installed to internal hdd............aliens colonial marines texture popup fixed, that is from .iso on external drive.

(slim and super slim, i think has some screen tearing on gran turismo, which is probably fixed with ssd, but that along with gta just too boring, don't have any of them installed)

EDIT

500gb western digital (wd blue_WD500LPCX) (976,773,168) reported from "hdd raw copy tool 1.10"
500gb WD BLUE SSD (976,773,166) reported from "hdd raw copy tool 1.10"

Took 8 or so hours to finish

Worked with no problems, no menu slowdown, no need to reinstall firmware, (notice the 2kb size difference, didn't cause a problem)

Because of mixed reports, I decided not to try another ssd brand, WD BLUE, was the only reasonable price with good reported quality, PNY wasn't on sale.........those work fine with the ps3, i'm sure also others too..............there is reported some earlier models having slowdown when they are close to full or over time, there's also a few new brands of ssd, wasn't worth taking the risk, with the market like it is right now!

MonkeyMD · Jun 23, 2022

Created an account just to say thanks.

I have tried the PS3 backup tool and that didn't work.
Have tried a few cloning tools and they didn't work.

This is the only thing that worked.

Had a 360GB Slim and replaced with a 500GB SSD. Just a Cheap $50 drive.
Only reason was I needed to replace the Blu Ray player so figured might as well replace HD and clean out all the dust.

Neal Cullum · Jun 26, 2022

Thanks for this! All this time i have been sorting my HDD's out the hard way installing games again. I didn't think this was even possible.

godreborn · Jun 26, 2022

I'm not sure how the serial number works with the hdd, but it's located in two places. The only one that seems to matter is the one in the xregistry. It's in the vflash on the hdd with nor consoles, but the chips for emmc and nand. However, it seems to ignore the one on the xregistry as well if cloning works. I think it just detects the erk, which is in the metldr. And, it also detects the firmware version.

Neal Cullum · Jul 6, 2022

I am wanting to get rid of my old fat ps3 and use a slim, will cloning the hdd work in the new ps3?

godreborn · Jul 6, 2022

Neal Cullum said:
I am wanting to get rid of my old fat ps3 and use a slim, will cloning the hdd work in the new ps3?

No, erk is console specific.

Neal Cullum · Jul 6, 2022

godreborn said:
No, erk is console specific.

Damn, will have to reinstall games again.

depaul · Jul 6, 2022

Neal Cullum said:
Damn, will have to reinstall games again.

-You could copy the entire folder : HDD0:\game from your old PS3, that contains installed games, to an external HDD (it will take too long, like 12h-24h)
-On the new PS3, copy that content of the "game" folder to your PS3
-Rebuild database. You'll find your installed games there in XMB.
-You'll need to "Activate" your PSN games again (....)

Neal Cullum · Jul 25, 2022

depaul said:
-You could copy the entire folder : HDD0:\game from your old PS3, that contains installed games, to an external HDD (it will take too long, like 12h-24h)
-On the new PS3, copy that content of the "game" folder to your PS3
-Rebuild database. You'll find your installed games there in XMB.
-You'll need to "Activate" your PSN games again (....)

Thanks

godreborn · Jul 25, 2022

Neal Cullum said:
Thanks

it would be much easier just to reinstall the package files. not all files can be copied to a windows formatted drive, if that's what you're using. ext4 might work, but I don't know.

Bluenoser · Mar 17, 2023

Not sure why, but my HDD (WD Black 500GB) wouldn't update and tried to repair it via safemode. Hoping that I can recover my saved games from this. I have cloned my drive and will wipe it clean and put the latest firmware of the PS3 on it. Is this going to work or am I doomed?

zecoxao · Mar 17, 2023

the crypto used is from the console itself, a key called the eid root key is used (this key is stored inside the perconsole metldr) with a couple of keyseeds to generate either cbc or xts keys which will, in turn, decrypt the hdd.
if you clone a working disc to another, it will behave the same way (obviously with an ssd you'll have much faster speed but it'll also deteriorate faster since the ps3 doesn't support TRIM natively)

with the ps4 it's a similar method (but instead of having one master key, two keys are used, one by samu, and the other by the southbridge)
the samu key handles partitions like system, system_ex and system_data, while the southbridge key handles partitions like user, update and eap_vsh.

older ps4 models (such as CUH-1000 and 1100) use a static iv offset for the keys (0 in this case)
later models (such as CUH-1200 and above) use an iv offset that is calculated by subtracting the index of the device by 1 and left shifting by 32 (for example, for the user partition, this would be 27-1 << 32)

crypto for the ps3 device can be found here

https://github.com/Sorvigolova/ps3encdec/

and here

https://github.com/aerosoul94/PS-HDD-Tools

crypto for the ps4 device can be found here

https://github.com/zecoxao/ps4encdec

and here

https://github.com/aerosoul94/PS-HDD-Tools/
for ps3 crypto only the root key is required. for ps4 crypto (as of now we can only obtain the southbridge key), the southbridge key can be obtained either via a kernel dump (this is the easiest way for a hackable console) or via the ps4 hdd script by anonymous and an sflash dump

the offsets for the key location on the kernel can be found here

https://github.com/Ps3itaTeam/ps4-kexec/blob/9.00/magic.h

under the name kern_off_eap_hdd_key
the hdd script can be found in psx-place (search for the words ps4 hdd script)

Hacking PS3 HDD cloned successfully

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