Hacking Power on, Ps3 asks to format

[echan42]

Woah, I can see how that WOULD work, but it'd probably take me longer to hack my ps3 and make those backups than to play all my games again.

What if I used clonezilla to backup the problematic HD to my PC, bought a new HD, had the PS3 format it, and then restore the clonezilla file, if the enrciption key is the same between hard disks I might have luck depending if clonezilla can read the sectors the PS3 is having trouble with, if not, couldn't I unpack the backup and extract the savegames eventough they are encripted? I don't know how I'd get them back on my Ps3 since I can't copy to the hard disk without the key.

My major problem is having to hack my ps3.

 

[Cyan]

cloning the entire drive is your only solution.

You can't extract just savegame files from it.
And to unpack the backup, you need a backup created by the PS3 and your keys, which you can't have anymore if you are on latest firmware. I think the full HDD image can't be used to extract data from it (but maybe I'm wrong? I didn't follow all the latest PS3 scenes progress).


or if it's not a hardware issue (sectors are fine), you can always try to reinstall the same firmware version from the recovery menu. with some chance, the issue is on the firmware files and not your profile's files (save, trophies, etc.)

 

[echan42]

So I'll make a backup and I'll save it for some time, maybe some day I'll decide to downgrade my ps3 (is infectus still a thing?) then I could extract the key and access the whole backup.

cloning the entire drive is your only solution.
or if it's not a hardware issue (sectors are fine), you can always try to reinstall the same firmware version from the recovery menu. with some chance, the issue is on the firmware files and not your profile's files (save, trophies, etc.)

As soon as I'm done checking the HD's integrity with testdisk to verify if I need to buy a new hard disk to avoid the same happening soon I'll downloade the latest firmware on a flashdrive and give it a shot. Thanks! i never thought of that!

 

[echan42]

Acutally I just finished checking the HD and I don't really know what to make of this, can anybody recommend some HD forendiscs or integrity checking software for a HD in a format that is unreadable for the host OS?
Most HD scanning tools requite that the system asigns a letter to the drive, and that's not happening anytime soon with a ps3 hard disk.

 

[Cyan]

You can assign letters to partitions not recognized by the OS, but only if there's a partition table.
for example, WiiU format the entire drive and don't leave any partition table, so windows can't assign letters to "partition" because there aren't any.
the drive is like "raw data".

You would need tools which can analyze sectors without specifying a partition (HDD sector analyze, not partition file system check).

 

[Foxi4]

What's the manufacturer of the drive? Different manufacturers tend to have their own low-level diagnostics tools. It's probably Hitachi, but double-check that.

 

[echan42]

I tried Safe Mode System Update, but whenever I press X on the "System Update" option the ps3 freezes, my guess is, since the next screen shows "please insert a USB device with [insert current Ps3 firmware version here] or higher" the ps3 reads form the HD to get that information, so the info on my hd is so busted it can't even read the firmware version off it, or maybe the firmware is contained on a chip on the board, I don't know, but as far as I'm interested Sytem update depends on a funcional HD.

I verified the HD is samsung, but don't manufacturer tools depend on reading SMART? I've heard it's not relible to trust SMART readings to determine the disk's health.
If it's busted I'll buy a new HD and try to clone, if not I'll backup format and try to restore. I can always save my backup for the day I bore of Psn and install CFW, then I could extract the key and decrypt the HD image.

 

[Foxi4]

S.M.A.R.T is one of the logs used in error reporting, but manufacturer's tools tend to have a low-level scan option. If the update freezes, it's probably trying to read your corrupt drive. OFW is on the disk, only the bootloader is on the motherboard. Make an image of the drive and format it on PC, perhaps it's salvagable, but don't keep your hopes up - it sounds pretty busted to me.

 

[echan42]

Yeah, so I couldn't find a tool to scan this hard disk, it's a HN-M101MBB samsung drive and I couldn't find any tools by samsung except hutil wich when run said "hutil isn't compatible with this drive", so heck I just did a backup of the drive and accepted the Playstation's promt to format it.

If I ever come to installing cfw to the console I'll extract the key and possibly decrypt the backup, now I'll just patiently wait to see if the drive fails on me to buy a replacement.
It's a shame I share ps plus with a friend, if not I'd just go ahead and buy a year's worth susbscritpion just to avoid this in the future, thanks for all your help guys! Also for your quick responses!

 

[Foxi4]

If you want my advice, format the drive on PC and scan it with good 'ol chkdsk /f - it will attempt to fix bad sectors. The PS3 can't do that, it just performs a full wipe, so the problem might come back.