As you can imagine, I'm not very happy with this
I can't imagine why you didn't make regular back-ups.
You say you had not backed up your PS3 for nearly a year due to it being your 3rd PS3? Wouldn't that be a reason why you should have been backing up your game saves regularly, not once a year???
You said, are on your 4th PS3.... and yet you didn't bother to make a back-up of your game saves??? I'm sorry for your misfortune... but I guess I don't get it.
It's so easy to back-up games saves, even easier with PS+, which Sony gave 30 days free just recently. So if you have had such bad luck with PS3's dying on you, why no back up?
In fact, with your bad luck, I'm surprised you have not been making regular back-ups of your entire HDD... just in case.
As far as getting your game saves back. If you are on your 4th one you really should know by now it is fairly easy to get even a YLOD PS3 running long enough to backup your game saves, and even run the
Data Transfer Utility, which will transfer all your data from the old PS3 to the new one.
If this was your first time, I could certainly understand your predicament... but three times and you still didn't make any recent back-ups and didn't do a reflow on your old PS3 to at least backup your games saves and even transfer your data? Yeah, I don't get that.
Should your next PS3 "die" may I suggest you check out my thread before sending it off to Sony:
I've heard that SAVE DATA on GT5 is 'copy protected'...Any ideas???
It was, but several months ago it was changed to allow for back-ups... which is why many people now exploit that feature to send cars and such to different accounts without losing those cars and items by restoring the previously saved game save.
Does the Online Storage feature of the PS3 count as a backup?
Yes. You can backup your game saves there as long as you are a PS+ member.
That's a real shame, cos I had loads of money, around 150 cars, level 33, etc.
Well you are in luck them, as it is VERY easy to level up, and earn millions in just one day now with the current tripple payouts of XP and Credits in the seasonal events.
In just one hour you can earn over 7 million credits and 700,000 XP... which would jump you from level 1 to level 24!
If you can't actually be bothered to do the racing, you could always use a different account on your PS3 and use the Remote Racing feature and use the B-Spec Grinding Widget. You can reach level 33 in just a couple days or so. Or you can do the rubberband trick with Indy and an X2010. You can get to level 33 quite quickly.
If I'm being honest, I don't really want to start from scratch...
I was just enjoying playing my mates online using the cars I had accumulated in my garage!
You can use your mate's game save, but only if he puts his account on your PS3 and you play using his user. You don't have to be logged in, so he doesn't have to give you his password, and it won't prevent him from playing at the same time.
However, if you also want to play online, then you'll need to make sure that's OK with your mate, as you can't both be logged in at the same time.
Also, any trophies you earn will go towards his trophy count of course.
Surely there's a way to use a friends save... Removing the copy protection?
I reckon a save file could easily be hacked by a someone in the know... This person is obviously not me... But, It's not like we're dealing with NASA or the FBI...
Think about it...
If someone can hack the whole PS3 network, surely someone can unlock a save file? Surely someone has the answer?
First of all the GT5 game saves are no longer copy protected... but they are tied to the account that made them.
Game saves can be hacked, which is why more developers are making their game saves copy protected (leave it to hackers to ruin it for everyone else).
However, it should be fairly obvious that doing so can lead you to getting banned from the PSN, and I'm fairly certain even discussing how to hack game saves is against
GTPlanet's AUP and could result in getting banned from GTP.
