Can you swap an PS3 HDD into another PS3 and have it work?

Shifty Geezer

uber-Troll!
Moderator
Legend
If I take my HDD out of my PS3 and put it in someone else's, will it work just like my PS3, or will there be some security that matches my HDD to my hardware?
 
In answer to my own question, in case anyone searches for this later, the answer is no. A replacement PS3 asks for an existing PS3 drive to be formatted, so they are locked to specific units. I guess proprietary encryption would use a per-system key? Restoring a backup restores users and the media you had, and game saves, but not the games, or account details (sensibly!). You have to download all your games again.
 
Restoring a backup restores users and the media you had, and game saves, but not the games, or account details (sensibly!)

Just a minor clarification. The Playstation "desktop" account will be restored, but the Playstation Network account will not.

If you already have a desktop account with the same name, the restore process will copy the backup'ed account into a new one (renamed to "User N" where N is an integer).
 
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