Cloning PS3 HDD

ZXSpectrum · 6 Aug 2009 at 10:08

Has anyone tried it? I am going to be upgrading to a 400Gb from a 160Gb soon. Only problem is that backing up to external HDD then reinstalling the drive then recovering takes hours. I use Acronis True Image Echo at work and its a superb piece of software. Was just wondering if i popped the drive into a machine and use the Clone function it it works or is there some propriatory disk format on the PS3?

Streeteh · 6 Aug 2009 at 10:10

iirc it's a proprietary disk format so i don't think it'll work. Wouldn't hurt to try though.

andshrew · 6 Aug 2009 at 10:18

If you were able to clone the existing hard drive to the new one then I imagine you'd only have 160gb available still as the PS3 provides no way to expand the partition (and I don't think there is any 3rd party software that can do this yet).

ZXSpectrum · 6 Aug 2009 at 10:21

nah True Image Echo allows you to expand the partition automatically.

andshrew · 6 Aug 2009 at 10:27

Yeah, for an NTFS and FAT partition of which the PS3 is neither.

True Image would have to understand the PS3 file system to be able to expand it and as I said I don't think there is any 3rd party software that can read, let alone modify, the PS3's file system.

Dutch Guy · 6 Aug 2009 at 10:51

As soon as you use a new drive in a PS3 you must format the drive before you can use it, the only way is to make a backup from the old drive and restore that on the new drive after you formatted it with the PS3