Help needed with PS3 HDD

[NFSCARBON1]

I have been bought a new 12GB SuperSlim PS3 and have tried installing a second hand 160gb HDD. The HDD has been tested in front of me so I know the drive itself works. However it does not work when fitted to my PS3. Various problems occur.
1. When HDD detected PS3 tries to copy data over from it's flash memory but needs to format the hard drive. Format is successful but 800100B00 (At least I think it's that) error occurs during copy process
2. Format fails due to (FFFFFFFF) error or freezes console
3. Format works but HDD is corrupted, very very slow system restore>Black Screen> reboot loop happens
4. Everything seems to work but Console hangs at Wave screen (before XMB loads) then either completely crashes or the restore loop happens again.

I have tried using the Safe Mode menu, but the same problems keep happening. I have also googled everything but the results bring up HDD's with only one of these issues, not all of them at once.

The HDD is a Hitachi SATA, 5400rpm 2.5'' drive similar to this one
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hitachi-1...K_Computing_HardDrives_RL&hash=item3f204b0433
(I am not selling this item, it is merely for reference)
It is originally formatted to NTFS format if this could be causing the problem?

The console runs perfectly on it's Flash memory and seemingly the Hard Drive runs fine on a PC. Hopefully someone here will know of a work around!!!

 

[Tornado]

It sounds like there are probably bad sectors on the drive, which ordinarily wouldn't cause problems with Windows unless they were specifically encountered, but will cause havoc on the PS3's finicky OS.

 

[dr_slump]

Well then, go ahead and check the drive for bad sectors on your PC.



EDIT: That ebay offer is ridiculous! 45£ for a used 160GB HDD? Daaaaaaaamn!
It also looks abused, not only used...

 

[NFSCARBON1]

Thanks for the replies, I'll have to see if I can borrow a HDD enclosure to plug it into my PC.

@dr_slump this one cost me £20 and is in far better condition than that one!!!! I just hope no fool buys it

 

[sesselpupser]

Do you know how old the drive is? Hitachi drives have a pretty poor reputation, or at least did, the 3.5" Deskstar drives aren't called Deathstars for nothing... I think you will probably find a physical (i.e. unfixable) problem with the drive, but even if you don't, it doesn't sound like a viable drive for your PS3 anyway; putting an NTFS drive into your PS3 should format it to work properly, any failure there would mean the drive is faulty.

If you don't get it working, Western Digital or Seagate - assuming it's not an old one - drives are pretty good. I have a 320GB WD Blue drive in my PS3, it's slow as hell (it takes upwards of 5 minutes per GB when installing) but dependable. And it was quite cheap.

 

[dr_slump]

You must be confusing something.
Deathstars was the name for the IBM Deskstar GXP drives, which landed on the market in 2001. Hitachi bought that division in 2003 and continued the series for a relatively short time.

It's new to me that HGSTs developed Deskstars were ever called Deathstars in a broad extent.



Oh and just saying: HGST aka Hitachi GST is now part of WD, since 2011 to be precise.




EDIT: His drive is from 2006/2007

 

[sesselpupser]

Oh, maybe my info was bad but the time before the last time I was shopping for hard drives I found a forum thread on Tom's Hardware about how the Hitachi Deskstars were to be avoided, and most people were chiming in to say pretty much the same thing. Frankly I didn't really get why, considering I actually have a Hitachi Deskstar, and... Well, I'm not going to jinx it, but let's just say I've had it for a while.

But WD and Seagate; good brands? You clearly know your stuff, please tell me Seagate are good, I just bought a 2TB Barracuda for my PC!

 

[dr_slump]

Oh, maybe my info was bad but the time before the last time I was shopping for hard drives I found a forum thread on Tom's Hardware about how the Hitachi Deskstars were to be avoided, and most people were chiming in to say pretty much the same thing. Frankly I didn't really get why, considering I actually have a Hitachi Deskstar, and... Well, I'm not going to jinx it, but let's just say I've had it for a while.

But WD and Seagate; good brands? You clearly know your stuff, please tell me Seagate are good, I just bought a 2TB Barracuda for my PC!

The 7200.11 series is garbage as far as I know (in relative terms).

If you have a new one then it's most likely a 14 or 15, which seem to be alright.



It's often more about series and age than manufacturer. Pretty much every manufacturer had good and bad drives in his portfolio at one or another point.

It's a bit like as example Maxtor. Certian studies showed Maxtor drives to be the by far the most reliable ones, but at the same time tons of people told the exact opposite and it often didn't have the best reputation.
Maxtor was bought by Seagate btw.



Most people recommend WD and Seagate blindly, simply because that are the two really big names in this branche. People tend to think bad about stuff they don't really know. From what I've heard, Hitachi drives have a really good reputation especially in the enterprise sector.
I don't want to say WD and Seagate are bad, definitely not.



EDIT: Aaaaaand shipment. If you get HDDs which are dead on arrival, then usually bad shipment is the cause. If that happens repeatedly, better change the retailer. Even if hard drives do work, bad shipment could lead to future issues.