Howto upgrade a PS3 hard drive.
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Loading ...So, after not even 6 months of having the ps3, I found that my downloads and gamedata were taking over the 80GB drive. I knew it was going to happen, and it’d (inevitably) have to be replaced, it was just a matter of time. How I did it, the tools I used, and the problems that I ran across (which you will too, guaranteed) are all right here. Click that “read more” link!
What you’ll need
To successfully upgrade your PS3 hard drive (without losing data), you’ll need a few things:
1: A Thumb Drive
2: Two DIFFERENT phillips screwdrivers (I could not do it with just one, the screws to be removed appear to be two completely different sizes)
3: A new Hard Drive (2.5″ SATA @ 5400 RPM)
4: A USB SATA Enclosure and an extra drive formatted as FAT32, with appropriate USB cables.
5: A kitchen knife (or flathead screwdriver)
Now that you’ve got all this assembled, let’s get down to the brass tacks, how to do this:
Step 1 (with external hard drive and enclosure)
To start with, put the extra hard drive in the enclosure, turn the power on and plug it into the PS3’s USB port. How to do this will vary from enclosure to enclosure, so I’m not going to go into details to putting it together.
Now that you’ve got the drive plugged in, it’s time to back up the PS3. Go into the PS3, exit out of all applications and games, and in the XMB, navigate to Settings. In there, find the “system settings” menu, hit X, then scroll down to Backup Utility. Hit X again, then select Back Up. This should pull up a couple of warnings. One will be about trophies (follow their instructions there), another about wanting to do this, really. Select Yes, and your PS3 will start looking for a place to back up to.
If your PS3 DOESN’T recognize the drive, you have to reformat it as a FAT32 disk, or you can simply create a partition (or a number of them) using Windows on this disk that are fat32. I won’t go into the ‘howto’ of that now, but maybe later.
Step 1 (with just a flash drive!)
Plug your flash drive into the USB port
Using your PS3, go to the Game menu, then down to the Saved Data Utility menu.
Scroll down to each item in the “Saved Data Utility Menu”, click Triangle, then ‘copy’ data do your flash drive.
Now that we’ve got Step 1 out of the way, let’s go to step 2
If you used your flash drive to get the data backed up, you will need to remove it from the PS3 and place it in your PC. If it’s not in your PC and you DIDN’T use your flash drive to back up data, then plug it into your pc.
Pull up your web browser, and view this page. Follow their instructions specifically on downloading the latest firmware (to a PC), because you’ll probably need it.
Now, let’s go to step 3
On the PS3, go to Games, then select trophies. Wait for your trophies to sync!
Turn OFF the PS3, unplug it, then remove it from all devices (tv, stereo, etc)
Take the PS3 to a clean table or surface
Using your kitchen knife (or flathead screwdriver), pry the black hard drive enclosure cover off the side of the ps3. It will be a noticable cover, on the left side (if you have the ps3 front facing you).
Using the phillips head screwdriver, remove the first (blue) screw from the drive case
There will be a lever, or latch that you will need to use to pull the PS3 drive from the case itself. Using that, pull it out (don’t force it, it should come out easily enough).
Using the phillips screwdriver, you will want to unscrew ALL of the screws holding the drive in the drive tray.
Finally, remove the drive itself from the tray.
Once the drive is removed, store it somewhere safe, because you MAY need to return the system to sony, and you don’t want to give them your larger drive;)
Put the new drive in the tray, and put the screws back in. Make sure it’s in EXACTLY how it came out!
Replace the tray in the PS3, and put the latch back in, then screw the Blue screw in.
Put the cover back on the drive bay.
Now, the drive is replaced, let’s go to step 4:
Plug your system in, connect all devices, but do NOT turn it on (yet).
Find the flash drive that you used to get the PS3 system update, and plug it into the USB port
Find one of your charging cables (for controller), and connect a controller to it.
Turn the system on.
If all goes well (and it should), you will have a short pause while the system loads the current firmware, and you’ll be good to go from there.
Step 5, restoring data
Once your system is backed up, it’s time to restore your data. To do this, make sure that you have your flash drive (or USB enclosed drive) handy, and follow these steps.
Plug the drive into the PS3 USB port
For Enclosed drives, you need to go to Settings -> System -> Backup, and choose RESTORE
For flash drives, you need to go to Games -> Saved Data , choose the FLASH DRIVE, and individually copy each data to the PS3.
Now, for the caveats!
Caveat #1: The system will NOT copy all of your downloaded content. This has something to do with Sony’s licensing, and it’s fine, because you can download it again (up to 5 times per item).
Caveat #2: The system will NOT back up all game save data. There are a FEW from EA that do not back up (specifically the Need for Speed franchise), and I’m sure there are others. This is a game manufacturer choice, and, quite frankly a poor one.
Caveat #3: The system will NOT back up ANY of your ‘game data’ (the stuff copied from the disk to the hard drive), updates, etc. This is something you will need to do individually for each and every game. Had I known this, I would have simply used my flash drive, instead of buying a HD enclosure, but I had a spare HD anyways 
Caveat #4: Sony claims that changing the hard drive may void warrantee. I’m sure that’s just a gimmick to get you to buy their bigger hard drive systems, but hey, you’ve been warned!
All in all, the hardware upgrade was the easiest thing about this. Getting data back on the system from 30+ games was a MAJOR pain in the ass, and restoring was quite simple. Of course, now I have a PS3 with 200+ gig free, as opposed to a PS3 with barely 30 gig free like before. More space = more fun, more games, more entertainment!
