PS3 hard drive access from PC for save files?

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Hey guys. My friends PS3 went bust. He had a 320GB WD in it and it had all his saves on it etc. The hard drive itself is fine. Just the PS3 hardware that is busted.

He says and other sources say that when the HD is put into another PS3 it gets automatically formatted. No good obviously as he wants to somehow extract his save games from the hard drive.

I proposed that he bought say an IcyBox and installed the hard drive and hooked it up to his PC. My question then is, if it's being recognised by Windows, can he then just say copy/paste save games from it? Or are they encrypted on the hard drive and just not accessible?
 
It depends whats up with the console, if he has sent it back he may get the same one back so all he would need to do is put the HDD back in and it will be fine. If he still has it, and its a BD problem or at least it switches on he can do a backup to an external drive. If its out of warranty and has the YLOD their are a few guides on the net that show you how to repair it yourself although it may not be a perm fix.
 
The only way to get the saves back is if he gets his excact same machine back and no other harddrive has been used in it, otherwise the drive will need to be formatted, it sucks, I had the same issue :mad:
 
PS3 hard drive is encrypted (and probably uses a proprietary file system?) so no PC will be able to read the drive - sorry!

Su
 
Tell him to use a USB stick (or SD card if possible) and manually backup the savegames, it only takes a few seconds if you only backup the changed data and I do it daily after I finish gaming.
 
The only way to get the saves back is if he gets his excact same machine back and no other harddrive has been used in it, otherwise the drive will need to be formatted, it sucks, I had the same issue :mad:
Im pretty sure it doesnt matter if another HD has been used in it - when my PS3 60Gb went back to Sony I had to put back the original 60Gb HDD and when it returned swapped it out - both before sending it and putting back my HDD I checked it all worked on the original 60Gb HDD - didnt lose anything...

My fault was the BD drive going...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
Im pretty sure it doesnt matter if another HD has been used in it - when my PS3 60Gb went back to Sony I had to put back the original 60Gb HDD and when it returned swapped it out - both before sending it and putting back my HDD I checked it all worked on the original 60Gb HDD - didnt lose anything...
Strange, I thought that as soon as you put in a different harddisk you have to format the drive :confused:
 
ps3ud0, was that with an older firmware? Or I guess you magically got the exact same console back, which is why it worked!

Su
 
I got the same console back - it was a while ago (Dec 2008) but Im pretty sure I tested it with the original drive before I put my 320Gb in...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
If the machine has the same serial number (e.g. if you get the same machine back) you can restore ALL savegames. Even locked ones.

Obviously this depends on you doing a complete backup in "Backup utility"

If you get a different system you can restore saves, but not locked ones.
 
If the machine has the same serial number (e.g. if you get the same machine back) you can restore ALL savegames. Even locked ones.

Obviously this depends on you doing a complete backup in "Backup utility"

If you get a different system you can restore saves, but not locked ones.
That is with a backup, I took out my 320GB drive with the intention to put it into a refurbished PS3 I got but I had to format the drive and I thought that if you put in the original 60GB drive after using a 320GB drive you have to format the drive before you can use it and again if you want to use the 320GB after using the 60GB drive.
 
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