PS3 HDD XMB Hole - Boot BackUps

[Gunner54]

Ok, I have recently seen the tutorial on the Swap-Switch method for playing back-ups, and on how you swap the disc's to trick the PS3. I have also been reading on the HDD Game Back-Up TIFF exploit using the HDD to freeze the PS3 etc..

Well i have recently found a new exploit. Unclip the HDD cover and unscrew that blue screw! DONT UN-PLUG THE HDD YET!!!

Go to Game on the XMB menu. Put in a Genuine PS2 game. Let the XMB load the PS2 disc, so you should now see the gold disc appear in the Game menu. Now scroll up too Game Data Utility and then go to the Network menu. Now switch back to the Game menu. You should now be on the Game menu with the Game Data Utility sub-menu high-lighted. Slide you HDD to the right using the metal leaver thingy your PS3's HDD should now be disconnected from the PS3. Now take out the Genuine PS2 disc and insert a legaly backed-up PS2 game, wait for it to read the disc. Now scroll down to the gold disc on the Game menu and now RE-INSERT the PS3 HDD by sliding it to the left, you might find the HDD a bit of a struggle to find the correct possition again but it should slid in eventualy. Once you have the HDD re-inserted press (X) on the PS2 game in the game menu. It should now boot-up. But will not load. I have only tested this on v2.01 so this exploit might work on lower versions.

This can also work with PS1 games and maby Blu-Ray

Post your findings

[PS3 News]

I am going to move this to the regular PS3 Chat section for now.. the PS3 Dev section is reserved for technical discussions versus user experiments such as this.

[Gunner54]

i was going to PM it you, but i couldnt find a PM function on this forum. So i posted it in the Dev section as i thought it could progress into a useful exploit =S

[PS3 News]

Ya, best to let end-users experiment with it here and share their results... we don't have PMs turned on at this time. I wouldn't try it myself as it sounds a bit 'risky' pulling the HDD in and out, plus I got rid of all my PS2 games (pressed and backups) about the time the PSP came out.

Good luck to all who give it a try- post your results!

[dud0r]

not sure if this is correct but what i think is that you just make the ps3 read the original ps2 disc wich it can boot, then removing the hdd causing it to "store" that bootable icon, without any result after, cause i believe i read somewere the ps3 does a reading on the copied disc at start up again, thus not reading it.

could be wrong and this might be a new hole the dev's can look into but that what it sounds like to me.

[Shoey]

Ok, since nobody else brought this up, doesn't this sound like what hacked2123 came up with a few months back?

Kudos to Gunner54 for figuring this out on his own, but this was known for a while and probably experimented with already.

Good job, anyway.

[Gunner54]

thanks =D, i just dont want to risk pulling my PS3 appart doing the Swap Switch mod. So i just started messing around and found this.

[myNameisEARL]

I try this......insert a orignal ps3 BD game and hit "X"
right when I hear the ching sound I unmount the HDD
swap disc with a DVD+/-R backup of a PS3 game......im using gundam crossfire as the entire game is only like 4 GBs and fits on a single layer DVD
insert the HDD and the system trys to boot but exits out into the xmb....
BUT....the DVD+R shows up as a blu ray disc game in the XMB......and the BD icon switches to the gundam crossfire logo and then into the little video would start playing.....this little useles trick only works on FW 1.80-1.93 and 2.0/2.01 have been patched and it doesnt work on older FWs.....sony patched it up so i guess it was a threat and a possable backdoor exploit....

what would happed if you turned on/off a PS3 without a HDD in it???

[vger2]

Gunner,

Did the original PS2 game you inserted have a bigger TOC than the copy you swapped?