How do I dump to PS3 partition?

[kutibah]

Hello, I have a 160GB hard drive, and I've alotted 10GB to the Linux partition. The normal command to dump a game is:

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/imagename.img

However, this will dump to the Linux Partition, correct? Well, there's only like 4GB left on that so I doubt there's room. How do I dump to the PS3 partition? I can't see the partition under Linux, so I don't know the file structure. Is this possible? Thanks.

[CJPC]

Yeah, basically to sum up what flash67 said, even on a Linux box, it still does not show the PS3 Game side of the HDD, as its encrypted (or in a non-common filesystem). I would not expect anyway around this anytime soon, or, at least until we can control the hypervisior, and use it to access the PS3 HDD!

Kutibah - > Reformat your drive, the other ways around, and it will work (10gb for PS3, alas, resulting in data loss however!)

[mestereo]

baCK your data up to a mem stick and then you can load it back later. I did you have to make 2 accounts on the ps3 and load the save data to one account then transfer and overwrite to the other, that's the way i did it and it worked. that's if you ver 1.0/.02.

[CJPC]

Baygins, the issue is that on the PS3HDD, the linux partition headers are offset (by either a few mb, or tens of gigabytes). If we could alter any number of programs to read the MBR from a set offset, we could then mount the linux partitions, and read/write to, and from them!

Mind you, this is only for the OTHEROS side, but still, it would be a start

[CJPC]

Well, it is probably possible to modify the filesystem drivers, to read at a certian offset, however, I dont beleive anyone has looked into that yet. (Currently easier to just transfer data from the PS3 Linux over a network!)

Furthermore, there are two 128mb Samsung flash chips (iirc) on the PS3's motherboard, Dont know if ones for PS3, other for PS2, or if its a backup (not a clue!).

What the PS3 does is on bootup, it does some stuff, initalizes the hypervisor etc, then checks a flag set in the 4mb user writable "otheros" area, a 0 or 1, for game os , or linux.

If its the GAMEOS, well, it does some more stuff, loads the XMB up, checks for a game/movie disk, etc.

If it is the Otheros, it uses its bootloader (aka part of otheros.self) to load into the user provided linux files, eventually booting linux.

Its basically a two stage bootloader, the OTHEROS.SELF boots the OTHEROS.BLD, which then boots up a full linux kernel!