How do i back up a Playstation 3 Hard drive?

Nodferatu

i wanted to ask if anyone can help me how to back up my playstation 3 harddrive and all my game saves etc. i have a 90GB PS3 slim, i used to own the original 60GB fat launch ps3 but that broke one day with the YLOD (yellow light of death) and i lost everything, i want to back up everything on my new ps3 now. have alot of game saves and data on it. my question is, i have an external hard drive already but when i plug it into the ps3 it doesnt recognise it or find it. i head you need to format hard drive to fat32 or something so how do i do that?

if i copy stuff already on my harddrive over to pc and format it to fat32, what effect will this have? can i copy everything back over to it again? thousands of music files, downloaded movies, thousands of photos etc etc, typical stuff backed up on it from my pc already. will it matter?
is this fat32 able to read everything still aswell as my ps3 folders i want to back up to it too. why does ps3 have to have a certain formatted type of hard drive to be able to copy files to.

im just not sure about this, im not a genius at this sort of stuff, any help would be grateful, just worried can i have all my pc data backed up on a formatted fat32 hard drive aswell as my ps3 data, all living in harmony on same hard drive?

how do i go about formatting the harddrive also? thanks in advance!!

mightybashful

Nodferatu wrote: »

i wanted to ask if anyone can help me how to back up my playstation 3 harddrive and all my game saves etc. i have a 90GB PS3 slim, i used to own the original 60GB fat launch ps3 but that broke one day with the YLOD (yellow light of death) and i lost everything, i want to back up everything on my new ps3 now. have alot of game saves and data on it. my question is, i have an external hard drive already but when i plug it into the ps3 it doesnt recognise it or find it. i head you need to format hard drive to fat32 or something so how do i do that?

if i copy stuff already on my harddrive over to pc and format it to fat32, what effect will this have? can i copy everything back over to it again? thousands of music files, downloaded movies, thousands of photos etc etc, typical stuff backed up on it from my pc already. will it matter?
is this fat32 able to read everything still aswell as my ps3 folders i want to back up to it too. why does ps3 have to have a certain formatted type of hard drive to be able to copy files to.

im just not sure about this, im not a genius at this sort of stuff, any help would be grateful, just worried can i have all my pc data backed up on a formatted fat32 hard drive aswell as my ps3 data, all living in harmony on same hard drive?

how do i go about formatting the harddrive also? thanks in advance!!

Good question. Was thinking the same meself

eddhorse

i heard you need to format hard drive to fat32 or something so how do i do that?

I recommend a program called "swissknife" for this :
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/

if i copy stuff already on my harddrive over to pc and format it to fat32, what effect will this have?

This is what you need to do, copy everything off it first onto your PC.
Use swissknife as mentioned to convert to FAT32.

can i copy everything back over to it again?

Then copy everything back on, same folder structure, doesn't matter.

will it matter?

No.

is this fat32 able to read everything still aswell as my ps3 folders i want to back up to it too.

Yes

why does ps3 have to have a certain formatted type of hard drive to be able to copy files to.

Good question, nobody really knows, just the way it is i guess.

just worried can i have all my pc data backed up on a formatted fat32 hard drive aswell as my ps3 data, all living in harmony on same hard drive?

Yes no problems at all

how do i go about formatting the harddrive also

AS mentioned, swissknife. Other programs also like Partition Magic.
Just make sure you get your stuff onto your PC first, then its safe.

Nodferatu

Thanks eddhorse appreciate the help there.

Nodferatu

another quick question, i read FAT32 cant hold files bigger than 4GB? is this true? i have game files bigger than that, so is it pointless then?

Varik

Nodferatu wrote: »

another quick question, i read FAT32 cant hold files bigger than 4GB? is this true? i have game files bigger than that, so is it pointless then?

You have ps3 game files that are over that and won't back up or that you have PC game files that were on the HDD that are bigger than that and you're worried you can't put them back on with FAT32 afterwards.


The PS3 won't have a problem backing up game installs to FAT32 but you won't be able to put single file from your PC on it while still in this format.

Partition the HDD to have 1 part FAT32 for the PS3 and keep the other partition for PC storage.

Nodferatu

hey varik, thats damn annoying, i formatted the whole external HD to FAT32 and was 2 and half hours into copying PS3 back up data onto it. i quit it there now, i thought from that prtevious post i understood it as all my pc files and ps3 files can be on a FAT32 formatted external hard drive, i mean thats the main question i asked. so im getting 2 different answers here now, you say i need to partition it, other guy says they will all work under 1 single HD format (fat32)!!!
well, i dont know how to partition a external HD either, im not good at all this computer technical end of things, i want roughly 150GB for ps3, and the rest 850GB for pc, i have a 1TB external HD.

have a b***h of a headache trying to solve this, i have a 1TB external HD so if i need to partition ill need to format one partition FAT32 purely for ps3 back up, and format the other partition NTFS for my PC back up, sounds so complicated to do. when i partition can i choose the size i want the ps3 to have and the size the pc gets? or does partition automaticallt give 50/50 half it? id rather have about 200gb for ps3, and 800gb for pc, but can i or can i not choose how much each gets?

Nodferatu

ok everyone, i finallt figured out how to do it, once you have the right software its simple.

i downloaded this free piece of software its really good:
''MiniTool-Partition-Wizard-Home-Edition''

http://download.cnet.com/MiniTool-Partition-Wizard-Home-Edition/3000-2094_4-10962200.html


i formatted the hard drive to NTFS, made a partition and made it FAT32 format and allocated 120GB space to it the other 820gb or whatever was left im using for pc which is already NTFS. labelled them accordingly, applied changes and the software done the rest and after the computer rebooted it was done, simple, thanks for the replys non the less

eddhorse

Good job well done.

For the record, you would have been fine with everything on FAT32.
Just doesn't hold any files bigger than 4GB.

Didnt realise you had files bigger than 4GB, would have given you the partition answer otherwise. ie some NTFS and some FAT32.

Varik

OSI wrote: »

Simple answer. Money. A windows machine will read/write to FAT32 and NTFS formatted drives. NTFS being the newer and better format. In order to read/write to a NTFS drive, you need to have the appropriate software to do so, this software is patented to Microsoft, and in order to use it, you need to pay Microsoft to license it. FAT32 on the other hand does not require licensing and therefore is the preferred option.

(Note: this is an over simplification of the problem, but gives you an idea of the issue)

The internal drive uses a proprietary file system that does not have these limits but Sony still needed a industry standard and Fat32 sadly was it.