ps3's hard drive in another ps3 has all data?

[lgos]

A friend of mine asked me to backup his ps3's data into a new HDD. I thought i could just do it with my ps3 at home, but aparently the data is encripted for each ps3. When i hooked it up to mine I got a black screen saying that it was not possible to run the system software and that i would have to format it.

I DID NOT PROCEED WITH THE FORMATING. however i am very afraid that the data could be lost when i return it to my friend.


Could anyone tell me if just installing the HDD into a different ps3 could erase the data or result in any kind of problem when putting it back to the previous console??

[wilpac05]

if you didn't proceed with format then you should be ok.

[ethical]

you could of done it by attaching an external hdd and backing up the ps3 to that then he would keep his data, don't think you can corrupt his data by putting ur friends hdd in to your ps3, he might have to rebuild his database but the ps3 will do that for him so he won't lose nothing.

[JedTanner]

As mentioned previously, the hdd should be fine if you did not proceed with the formatting. Each hard disk once formatted internally to a ps3 retains a record only specific to the console it was formatted with. Best suggested method is to use an external hdd as backup if you plan to use it on another PS3 console.