New PS3 - What to do?

[SetTheCat]

I got a CECH-2001B on firmware 4.81 from eBay this week, did some basic testing to make sure the hardware was working, and now I'm ready to start playing with it.

First thing I did was pop in a 1TB SSD, and now it's not wanting to boot without a PUP file. Makes sense, but I can't find a 4.81 PUP to restore the OS with. Is there a place where I can find the 4.81 update? Should I find and upgrade to 4.82? Should I upgrade to 4.88?

There seems to be a lot of information out there, but a LOT of it is either contradictory or outdated. What would be the best thing to do that would leave me with the most options?

 

[godreborn]

Update to 4.88, use bg toolset, and install cfw. Yours is compatible.

 

[SetTheCat]

When I install the new SSD I get:

Cannot start.
The appropriate system storage was not found.

I tried

• Hold down the power button until the system does a hard shutdown
• Hold down the power button until I get the double-beep for recovery mode
• Select "Restore PS3 System"
• Select "Yes" to format
• System Reboots after a short wait

But I end up back at "Cannot start". Any ideas? Does this thing hate my SSD for some reason?


Update:

I unplugged it from power and when I plugged it back in it booted to the prompt "System software cannot be run correctly." I put in my flash drive with 4.88 on it and hit Start + Select. It checked it for a bit then the progress counter came up. It ran from 0-50% at about 1%/second, then sped through 50-100% pretty fast. After it rebooted itself I was back at "Cannot Start".

Update2:

I unplugged it and plugged it back in a second time. This time it prompted me to update to 4.88. I pressed the PS button and after a short check the system returned

An error has occurred.
(8002F003)

Update 3:

Looks like it was the SSD. I had bought a 500GB SSD before realizing how cheap the 1 TB drive was and planned to return it. Just to test I popped in that 500GB drive and the whole process went super smooth.

I'm testing the 1TB drive now to see if it was a hardware fault, but assuming it's not is there any information from this decade on what drives a PS3 will tolerate?

 

[godreborn]

The ps3 and the ps4 sometimes don't like certain ssd.