The tale of the PS3 and corrupt harddrive

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TB

TB

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Once upon a time there was a little boy named TB. TB took good care of his things but on, thankfully, rare occasions, his things stopped working. This upset him greatly as these things typically cost a great deal of currency. The latest item in question was a PlayStation 3 console. It was a wise old unit - an 80 gigger dating from 2007.

Alright, enough story time. About 2 months ago, my PS3 simply wouldn't start load the XMB. A bit of searching showed that I could attempt to "Restore File System" so I promptly gave it a shot. No go.

Fast forward to today. I though I'd give it another shot. I turned on the PS3 and it no only didn't give me any warnings about a corrupt drive, it fully loaded the XMB. I started to remove a bunch of demos in an effort to make a backup go faster and then it locked up again and the XMB hasn't loaded since, despite attempts to rebuild and repair the drive. If left long enough, it has been restarting and gives me a "Cannon start. The correct hard disk was not found."

Am I well and truly borked or is there any chance of life left in her? I've kind of conceded that I'll likely end up buying a new... something (either drive or console) but I had hoped to be able to get it breathing long enough to back it up. Would a complete drive reformat do any good (and yes, I know I'll lose anything on there). Any suggestions?
 
I'm thinking the drive is toast, not the PS3. I don't know anything about getting a drive off the shelf to go into one of these things, though.

Starting OK after long shutoff, then boinking suddenly is a classic heat issue in drives. We used to stick drives in the freezer overnight to try to clone them to save the customer's data. Maybe give it a try???????
 
Might be an idea to try and back up your save data, wouldn't suggest you format until you do that, unless game data isn't important to you then a format might work. I was getting the same message as you on start up and after I replaced the HD things were fine for a while. After about one month the message came back, but now a simple flick of the power switch fixes it.
 
wfooshee
We used to stick drives in the freezer overnight to try to clone them to save the customer's data. Maybe give it a try???????
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How likely am I to have a condensation issue if I go this route? At this point I'll likely give it a go regardless.
Red-Rice
Might be an idea to try and back up your save data, wouldn't suggest you format until you do that, unless game data isn't important to you then a format might work.
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As I said, getting a backup is about all I want out of it right now so a format won't happen until all other options are exhausted. I'm not necessarily looking to get it up an running, although I'll eventually hunt down a different harddrive and see if that does the trick. If not, expect a new external drive enclosure to be purchased shortly thereafter. :lol:
 
Put the drive in a glad bag and remove the air and put it in the freezer for about 10mins and try.


Freezing HDD can work wonders when it comes to data retriveal.
 
I thought I would add that you should try the method I said before attempting any of the freezing ones posted above.

The method I posted above should work to allow restoring of file system feature to work and not constantly fail.

Also have you tried removing the hard drive and putting it back in straight away and then turning on PS3. This might work if it just a hard drive starting problem. If it does not work. Turn off at mains, and then turn back on to see if it works. If that doesn't start it up, then start up with no hard drive, then turn off and start up with hard drive in.
 
Freezer trick - no go. It did the same thing in the same amount of time.

SeaTools - also no worky. It passed the long test but returned an error on the short test - DST Failed Electrical Element.

So am I now well and truly boned to the point where I might as well try to let the PS3 reformat the drive or is there something else I should try first?
 
You could try a data recovery service, but they're kinda pricey. Depends on how desperate you are.
 
BobK
You could try a data recovery service, but they're kinda pricey. Depends on how desperate you are.
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First off, as it's "only" the drive from the PS3, I'm not going to entertain data recovery as a viable option.
dabest2500
Don't PS3 HDDs format themselves when you remove them?
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I believe it does that when a new drive is put in, not when the existing one is removed.

It looks like I'll likely be picking up a new drive from Newegg soon.
 

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