How to Upgrade a PS3 Hard Drive - and keep all your game save data

[@clintthompson4100]

Just want to say thank you. Finally an actual step-by-step guide instead of like the other umpteen million ones that seem to skip the important information. Thank you for a real step by step tutorial.

[@BytesNBits]

Glad it helped!

[@systemresponse]

Extremely helpful. Managed to replace a corupted hdd that was making the console stuck in a restore loop, just with this tutorial and an old 320gb hard drive from an old laptop. I appreciate your effort. Cheers.

[@BytesNBits]

No problem. Glad it worked for you.

[@AyakaxiOutfits]

can you help me? my ps3 is in the same state as your's im pretty sure and i really can't do anything as its just giving up after hours with the hdd and when i try to do the ssd upgrade it just refuses to even try and says it doesn't see the file to update

[@systemresponse]

@@AyakaxiOutfits also make sure the USB stick is fat32 formatted.

[@VentusFury]

It took until i looked at your video to see what i was doing wrong. Apparently when i got the recent update, it added the numbers to the file name and i needed to erase those numbers. 😅 Thank you so much!

[@BytesNBits]

Glad I could help

[@miszczmateusz]

The video is exactly what I've been searching for, thank you.

[@BytesNBits]

Glad I could help!

[@artisimo5797]

You know, I was thinking to myself "Man, it would be cool if Bytes N Bits uploaded a PS3 focused video." and right when I need it, here it is! Thanks a lot for the tutorial, my PS3 now has a 1 TB drive!

[@BytesNBits]

Great timing. Keep your eye out for the PS3 hacking series coming next!

[@Comesnackwithme]

Thank you so much never knew you could upgrade the hard drive that easy i just bought the 320gb from CEX yesterday. So went into the loft got the old laptop and upgraded the ps3 with a 1TB on the slim. Next thing is to Jailbreak it Merry Christmas

[@BytesNBits]

Great. Have fun! Merry Christmas to you too.

[@Astra8676]

As always, well presented and easy tutorial!!

[@BytesNBits]

Glad you liked it!

[@brenfu]

Good clear and concise demonstration. Thank you.

[@BytesNBits]

No problem.

[@Shorty_Hutch]

Unfortunately my original ps3 died :( a new update came out and it has me stuck in a loop now and seems to be no workaround

[@BytesNBits]

If you think it's a software issue trying a new hard drive or reformatting the existing one in your PC may recover the system.

[@karabothabelang8888]

Did you jailbreak it?

[@jayleng9630]

Sorry too say but your have too format your system in safemode hoped you backed your data if not bye bye data😢

[@Shorty_Hutch]

@@jayleng9630 i tried to go in safe mode but nothing stops it from going straight to the update screen :(

[@jayleng9630]

@@Shorty_Hutchformat your hdd with a laptop and sata cable or change hdd .maybe

[@DrLilo]

That framed Speccy motherboard is rad

[@BytesNBits]

Thanks. Have a look at the video of me making it.

[@Jessica-yo1uh]

I have a question what happens if you just bought a PS3 and you just change the hard drive can the PS3 can recognize the hard drive without using the PlayStation website update

[@BytesNBits]

I think you need to reinstall the firmware if you swap the hard drive.

[@dinocorreia1202]

Hi Bob. Will work cloning the disk to other SSD? Never did before. I mean, a real clone. There are some free software to do that as for Windows. Thanks

[@BytesNBits]

Great. Good luck!

[@vdochev]

If something eff-s up with the backup, can I just pop back in my original HDD and continue using it as before?

[@BytesNBits]

I'm pretty sure you can.

[@vdochev]

@@BytesNBits Thank you for the answer!

[@amrsalah1077]

Ps3 is supporting 2Tb Hdd?

[@BytesNBits]

Yes. 2TB is the maximum you can use.

[@benviah]

Wow, great instructions.

[@BytesNBits]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tonyheymunkets]

If you don't want to update and you don't wanna save anything can you just switch out the hard drive

[@BytesNBits]

Once you swap the hard drive you need to format it and add the system software. I think you might be able to download older versions if you need to, but I think you do have to put some system code on there.

[@edwin5281]

I did everything just like you, but when I click on start and select for it to look for the usb it tells me “No applicable update data was found” was formatted to fat32 its a 5gb usb stick

[@BytesNBits]

Make sure you've created the folders and filename exactly as in the video. They must all be in capitals. Make sure you turn on the file extensions in windows explorer so you can see the .PUP extension.

[@edwin5281]

@@BytesNBits I have also done all that and still nothing. I tried different usbs too.

[@thasonicfan2000]

Backing up, at 59%, I got an error message saying, "The back up operation could not be completed. (80010038)" Any fixes? From my research, something is corrupted.

[@BytesNBits]

Yes. That sounds like a likely cause. Can you try backing up in blocks until you hit the corrupt file or save data?

[@thasonicfan2000]

@BytesNBits thanks for the quick reply. How do I back up in blocks? Could you explain what that means as well? Sorry, I'm an amateur at this. I took out the usb and reformatted it again using the tool you used, though I was sure it was the right format. I'm in the process of backing up again, and it's taking hours because it's about 100gb of data.

[@xxdsyrghostxxx6615]

I already have modded software on my ps3 and want to do this but do I have to put the official update from PlayStation on my usb? Or can I just use the modded software I already have on my usb.

[@m1dnightcrisis]

You don’t need to update the software to change the HDD

[@BytesNBits]

I think there is an option in the custom firmware that allows you to clone your hard drive to a new one. This will put all your content onto the new drive so it will be a simple drive swap. I haven't got that far with my videos yet so please have a look online for some advice.

[@g4z-kb7ct]

@@BytesNBits There's no clone option. Basically due to the protection, encryption and custom HDD format all that stuff has to be re-built (silently) by the PS3 when doing what you did in this vid. It might be possible to do a bit-for-bit clone but it will have the exact same partition size as the old drive, which kind of defeats the point of putting in a bigger drive. So basically the answer is no, follow the standard update procedure. HOWEVER.... none of that matters if it has CFW. Just stick in a new larger HDD, use the same usb drive with the CFW on it and it'll re-install the CFW on the new drive and then you'll have a working+hacked PS3 with larger HDD. Do the user data restore and you're back to where you were before. I just did all this and it worked great. Why? Of course I was pretty excited about the CFW vid you did so I did it on my old 250GB hdd then put on a bunch of software, played it for a week then realised the hdd needs to be 1TB to get more out of it. And here we are.... full circle ;-)

[@noswanson1982]

@@g4z-kb7ct So, you don't need to go into PS3Toolkit and reapply the patch? Just plug in the cfw update, and it'll be good to go?

[@ronm6585]

Thank you.

[@BytesNBits]

You're welcome!

[@dreamer_prince900]

Can't you just plug a hard disk through usb, I'd need a 100GB usb to back up my game saves and that's too much space

[@BytesNBits]

Yes. An external hard drive works great.

[@umutkayacan7659]

Nice!!

[@BytesNBits]

Thanks.

[@DEXXXO]

THE PS3 BAckup is wherry Miserable if your PS3 goes Faulty the Backup will not complete be accepted for new Consoles PS3

[@BytesNBits]

Yes. Thanks for the tip.

[@robertunderwood5831]

External is easier

[@robertunderwood5831]

Just plug it in 😂😂😂

[@BytesNBits]

Thanks for the tip. I cover that in a later video.