How to do a Hard Reset on the PS3

[PS3 News]

Be sure to backup your settings/games saves by doing a System > Backup on your PS3 or you may lose your game saves! Also, this is a last resort procedure prior to exchanging/returning to Sony.

1. Power Off the PS3 via the power switch in back and power back on w/switch.

2. Hold Power Button on the Front until you hear 3 beeps.

3. Then go through the initial setup and then run a full Format via System > Format. (will take approx 3 1/1 hours). You may need to have our AV cables ready if your using HDMI (in case HDMI isn't detected after initial reset).

4. Restore your back-up you made prior to doing factory/hard reset (optional, if you created a back-up).

Hopefully this will solve your freezing problems.

Problems/symptons that this appears to have resolved:

- Freezing when doing anything
- No harddrive activity
- Freezing when trying to use onboard keyboard or bringing up keyboard
- Game/movie disc freezes system

[banduv]

I was not knowing this procedure. I removed HD and formatted on PC :-)

Hard disk was giving problems while loading.

[Loaded900]

very good to know thanks

[cenoxdj]

Lol would be nice if HARD reset was for FW too

[RexVF5]

Does it really solve anything? I would assume that Backup/Restore would mean you end up with the same HDD contents as before doing this. So the only change would be files maybe laid out in different way...

[MikeyBonez]

ok, i had issues with freezing during gta & in xmb, did hard reset as instructed by boss but system froze during format and now i don't get anything but a black scree. its not a full brick but idk how to revive the hard drive. i had my friend bring over a laptop so i could try formatting through that but no such luck, wrong connections. if anyone can help, please do.

[y2kgt]

My PS3 was freezing at startup, but did this hard reset, and working great again! Not sure what it was that caused it through.

[wuscht]

Never experienced such problems myself, but very good to know that there are ways to deal with them.

[saioke]

i never knew about this, but i wish i would of. it took me three days to fix my corrupted ps3's hard drive. this would of been much simpler. well, I'll be trying this the next time i have the problem. thanks

[Moe Cosmic]

I've tried this. It didn't work. It didn't even take 3 hours it was over in like a few minutes. I don't know what it did really.