Hard Drive Reformatting?

[Joey D]

So yet another one of my PS3's crashed and burned a couple of weeks ago and I wasn't too happy since, at the time, I thought I had lost my Rock Band data that I had worked pretty hard for. We were playing RB and the PS3 just shut off and wouldn't turn back on. I tried a buddies power cord but that didn't make any difference.

So I returned the PS3 to Best Buy, who now just gives you a gift card worth the total purchase price for the item instead of a new one. I decided not to buy another PS3 since I still wanted the 60GB one and they don't make those any more. I just took the gift card and put it aside for a new camcorder.

A buddy of mine who is a bit strapped for cash wanted to sell me his 60GB so I bought it. The only problem is all his stuff is still on the hard drive, for some reason he really enjoyed demos and probably had all of them the PSN store had to offer. There are a lot of things I can not play either since they are linked to his PSN account. So my question is, can I reformat the hard drive to get rid of all his junk along with his account being linked to the system?

Oh and it turns out there was a backup copy of Rock Band floating around so I have that again, which makes me less angry about the situation, although I still do not think two PS3's should have failed me.

 

[Chronos]

You could reformat using the Recovery Menu or remove the hard drive and put in another PS3 and that'll auto format it.

http://www.ps3daily.co.uk/20081024/ps3-firmware-250-how-to-access-playstation-recovery-menu/

About PS3 failing. Do you have the back of the PS3 close to a wall? It needs good clearance all round. I think the manual says 6-10 inches. Placing it on a carpet or near other hot electricals without much circulation wouldn't be good, putting the fan on too much and such.

Could you be shutting down the PS3 too quickly sometimes while its still accessing game data.

 

[Joey D]

Thanks for the link, I'll have to give it a go and see what happens.

I've had my PS3 on my TV stand which has and open front. I thought it was getting enough air and, like the 360, I used canned air a couple times a month to blow out all the dust so they don't clog up the fan. When it broke this time it was similar to how a PC fails when the power supply quits working or there is a mother board failure. I'm guessing it's something along those lines. We haven't had a power outage since xmas so I don't think there was a power surge on it it.

And I don't believe I'm shutting it down to quickly, I typically hold the PS button on the controller and select shut down system. I figure that is probably the safest way to shut it down, but I could be wrong.

Anyway hopefully I can get the "new" one up and running so I can go back to playing Rock Band.

 

[FoolKiller]

I know you can reformat the hard drive from the recovery menu, but I am not sure if it removes his account info.

It isn't a big deal though as all you have to do is create a new Master Account on your system and tell it you want to use an existing PSN account, then log in to your old account.

Also, have you tried Rock Band 2 yet? It improves every thing about Rock Band, plus you can export all of Rock Band (minus three songs) into the game, so you lose almost nothing.

Oh, and I started a dedicated Rock Band/Guitar Hero thread.

 

[hamstrings]

I guess he deauthorized his console before giving it to you. That would explain why you cannot play his PSN-linked games. Feel free to pave over the hard drive and delete his user account on the console, and make a new one like Foolkiller suggests.

I wonder how reliable those hard drives in the PS3 are. I took the stock 40 GB one out for use as an external drive, and it runs hot like a fireball.

 

[Joey D]

I know you can reformat the hard drive from the recovery menu, but I am not sure if it removes his account info.

It isn't a big deal though as all you have to do is create a new Master Account on your system and tell it you want to use an existing PSN account, then log in to your old account.

Also, have you tried Rock Band 2 yet? It improves every thing about Rock Band, plus you can export all of Rock Band (minus three songs) into the game, so you lose almost nothing.

Oh, and I started a dedicated Rock Band/Guitar Hero thread.

Ya I'm not sure, I'm going to give it a go right now. I've found some things online so hopefully I can get it situated.

And I guess I should have specified, I have Rock Band 2, I read the input devices were better so I went for 2 over 1, although I would like to pick up 1 to get additional songs.

Apparently we can't copy the information off another PS3 and put it on my PS3, which is lame because I do not want to have to start over from the beginning. I really hate EA sometimes all of the time.

I'll check out the thread though.

====

Alright everything is working now, my buddy stopped over and we got everything sorted out and I'm all setup on the "new" PS3. Now I just have to redownload everything and restart Rock Band.

 

[hamstrings]

Were you able to restore your Rock Band save from a full system backup?

 

[Joey D]

Were you able to restore your Rock Band save from a full system backup?

Apparently EA won't let you backup saved game files for whatever reason, which I find lame.

 

[hamstrings]

While it's not possible to backup only the Rock Band data, I was able to restore my Rock Band backups just fine along with everything else using the backup/restore utility. Do you mean that Rock Band won't backup to a different PS3?

 

[Joey D]

While it's not possible to backup only the Rock Band data, I was able to restore my Rock Band backups just fine along with everything else using the backup/restore utility. Do you mean that Rock Band won't backup to a different PS3?

A buddy of mine told me he had made a backup copy of the game data, although it appears now he couldn't have. We had been using my recently deceased PS3 to play the game and he was getting ready to return to school so he was going to make a copy of the data to put on his PS3. Apparently he never got around to telling me that he couldn't and when I asked him for it he said it wasn't possible.

I can redownload my DLC and whatnot but as for the band's progress that is forever lost. Another friend who has RB2 said he could try to give me his data since he had everything unlocked but apparently that's not possible since EA is the worse gaming company in the world.

 

[FoolKiller]

And I guess I should have specified, I have Rock Band 2, I read the input devices were better so I went for 2 over 1, although I would like to pick up 1 to get additional songs.

Just rent or borrow Rock Band 1 and buy the $5 export tool from the PSN store. You will get all but three songs added into Rock Band 2 and you will never need a Rock Band 1 disc again, unless you have another system failure problem. Of the three the only one that I find to be a real loss of any kind is Metallica's Enter Sandman. The other two were so unimportant to me that I can't think of their names right now.

Apparently we can't copy the information off another PS3 and put it on my PS3, which is lame because I do not want to have to start over from the beginning. I really hate EA sometimes all of the time.

Yeah, the save is locked, and I don't know why. Nor am I sure if it is EA or Harmonix that made that call. If you have an external hard drive with about 50GB free I suggest making a back up file at some point to prevent this in the future. I am using around 50GB of my PS3's drive and the backup file took up 41GB on my external drive.

I can redownload my DLC and whatnot but as for the band's progress that is forever lost. Another friend who has RB2 said he could try to give me his data since he had everything unlocked but apparently that's not possible since EA is the worse gaming company in the world.

If you want I'll be happy to help you go back through the challenges to unlock all the music.

I don't know why you can't restore your band data though. Harmonix is storing all your band info and it seems like they should be able to have a way for you to pull that back down, but they don't. Perhaps a post on their forums would have them help you out.

I know they store it because you can register your PSN account at Rockband.com and make custom merchandise from your band.

 

[Joey D]

Ya I'm going to start making a system backup now from time to time because losing two PS3's has made me question the third's reliability to hold up for any length of time. It always seems once I get my game progress back to where it was when the last one died (and this is on any system) the damn thing crashes. Guess that's my luck eh?

And I would like some help on Rock Band, my buddied who I would rock with have all gone back to school until the end of June so I'm bandless for the time being. Maybe I can pry myself away from the land of PC gaming long enough to get back on a console.

 

[FoolKiller]

Ya I'm going to start making a system backup now from time to time because losing two PS3's has made me question the third's reliability to hold up for any length of time. It always seems once I get my game progress back to where it was when the last one died (and this is on any system) the damn thing crashes. Guess that's my luck eh?

I am guessing that bad systems tend to be due to a bad batch of parts as any breakdowns I hear about seem to be close geographically or multiple times to one person. But at the same time know one I know locally has had a PS3 fail.

But once I got a good external drive I started doing backups about once a month.

And I would like some help on Rock Band, my buddied who I would rock with have all gone back to school until the end of June so I'm bandless for the time being. Maybe I can pry myself away from the land of PC gaming long enough to get back on a console.

I have recently unlocked the Endless Setlist. I wonder if you play through it with me if it will unlock all of your songs.

Although, the more sensible, and reliable, plan would be to go through the challenges as your band. We can even grab a few trophies along the way. I'm best at bass but can rarely do anything harder than medium. I'm working on moving up to hard though.

I know Ardius and giancarlo like Rock Band too. We could probably get a full band together to help you get your progress back. If need be, I have no problems singing while online, because you can't hear me. Otherwise singing is a guilty pleasure done alone in my house.

Also, I have found a quick way to gain fans is for any 2 song "make your own setlist" choose So Watcha Want - Beastie Boys, and Something in the Way - Nirvana (if you bought it) and then play it on Expert Bass. So Watcha want only uses green notes and Something in the Way only hits the orange note on an odd occasion. I can often get close to 100% and occasionally even gold star them.