PS3 Harddrive Suddenly Failed help?

[ps3haze]

Just curious if this happened to anyone else.

I had a Seagate 160gb drive in my PS3 (not original), I paused a game and then would not unpause. I tried to reboot the PS3 and eventually it would say same thing about the incorrect harddrive. I can swap it out for my 80 gig Toshiba and a few other test harddrives and they all work but this 160 with my latest game saves is buggered up

I tried recovery mode to rebuild the harddrive but still nothing. Anyone else have an idea I'd like those recent game saves back.

[SinnerShanky]

maybe the hdd crashed... Plug it in your pc and see if it detects the hdd.. The pc wont be able to read it whether it works or not but it will be able to detect it if it works... Moreover if the hdd has crashed then probably your best option would be to format the hdd and then use a data recovery software to recover your game saves... Rep me if i helped..

[daveribz]

That could work if you knew how to decrypt the data. The PS3 encrypts every bits and bytes that is written on the HDD with a key unique to each system, making it impossible to swap HDDs from a PS3 to another. You could try looking for some tools that can decrypt it, though I'm not sure if there's some real working app out there. I heard grafchokolo is working on something with the ENCDEC process, so just wait

[ps3haze]

Oh the harddrive definitely crashed. It is pooched.

I plugged it into a winxp machine and it did not recognize it a first it just clicked and whirred. So I tapped it and tilted it vertically and suddenly it started to work and XP recognized it. I quickly connected another drive to the PC and I am currently cloning the PS3 drive using HD clone.

So long as the drive works for another 4 hours I will get my game saves back.

[SinnerShanky]

yea... After cloning you just need to put a data recovery software at work.. You can get the extension of the game save files easily.. Recover all the files with that extension... and you are done... no need of decryption softwares or any other thing... Rep me if i helped...

and the recovery thing is to be done if the cloned hard drive is not read or accepted by the ps3 due to sum things we dunno about..

[GotNoUsername]

The HDD was useless the secound you connected it to PC (the PC changes some data on the HDD trough initializing) the PS3 no longer will acept this or your cloned copy !! And decrypting is not as easy at it seems, there are apps but you will need time and patience.

[SinnerShanky]

if he just needs his save games then they can be recovered..!! I don't understand why are you are so much inclined towards decrypting the hard drive when there is a simpler and smarter way...!!

[daveribz]

You definitely do not know a thing about PS3s HDDs, do you? The best way I think of recovering the data while the drive works is putting it back in the PS3 and backing up all those saves while you can.

[ps3haze]

That is 100% wrong. The second you initialize the harddrive in disk manager your data is gone but you can connect a drive to windows machine and look a the raw data. I've cloned my PS3 harddrive a dozen times with HD clone in the past few weeks with 0 ill effects. Now I have 3.41 and a 3.55 with the same trophies and game saves depending on my firmware mood.

if he just needs his save games then they can be recovered..!! I don't understand why are you are so much inclined towards decrypting the hard drive when there is a simpler and smarter way...!!

The harddrive physically failed. It did not operate in the PS3 so I could not save them. There was no warning, I paused a game to talk to my kid seconds later I tried to unpause and the machine was frozen. I rebooted and the PS3 said the HDD was missing?? When I pulled it out and tried to connect it to a PC even XP did not recognize it.

After hours of attempting to get the HDD working it suddenly did. I quickly cloned it and I had a full backup of my encrypted harddrive. Once I put the new 160GB drive in the PS3 everything was there and I had my data back.

You definitely do not know a thing about PS3s HDDs, do you? The best way I think of recovering the data while the drive works is putting it back in the PS3 and backing up all those saves while you can.

I hope you're not talking to me. I was very clear in my above post about what worked and what did not. If it was to me... and the horse you road in on if it was for the other person then I apologize and you can refer to my response above.

At this time all my data has been recovered on the new 160GB drive using HDclone in windows XP doing a full bit by bit copy. The failed 160GB drive worked only once more and never again no matter what I tried. The gods were smiling on me for 4 hours while it back-up and now it is destined for the recycle bin.