Does reinserting your PS3 HDD force a reformat?

[goonergaz]

long story short:

my PS3 died (YLOD by the looks of it), I've bought a slim and want to try and recover my saves (and kids accounts etc) from the old machine (which I will try to/send off for repair).

what I want to know is, will taking the HDD out and putting it back into it force the format? I know inserting a new HDD forces format...but can't seem to find an answer to this question!? The HDD will be removed to fix the YLOD, so I'm trying to figure out if it's actually worth the hassle or if all I'll get is a working (for how long) PS3 with no data!!

Thanks for any help/input.

 

[E2K]

long story short:

my PS3 died (YLOD by the looks of it), I've bought a slim and want to try and recover my saves (and kids accounts etc) from the old machine (which I will try to/send off for repair).

what I want to know is, will taking the HDD out and putting it back into it force the format? I know inserting a new HDD forces format...but can't seem to find an answer to this question!? The HDD will be removed to fix the YLOD, so I'm trying to figure out if it's actually worth the hassle or if all I'll get is a working (for how long) PS3 with no data!!

Thanks for any help/input.

I'm very sorry to hear that it died. You better first repair the YLOD ps3, and then update to 3.15 and transfer from there. Because from the looks of it, swapping the hdd to another PS3 is not gonna work..

http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&message.id=4183170
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091013123439AAxOLmI

 

[goonergaz]

I'm very sorry to hear that it died. You better first repair the YLOD ps3, and then update to 3.15 and transfer from there. Because from the looks of it, swapping the hdd to another PS3 is not gonna work..

http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&message.id=4183170
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091013123439AAxOLmI

cheers.

Yes, I realise swapping won't help - I read that re-inserting the HDD MAY fix the error, I know it's highly unlikely - but It's worth a shot. The problem I have is, if I take out the HDD and reinsert...will it then format when I switch on, or will it just ignore the fact I took it out and put it back in?

 

[patsu]

I think it should be okay. When I upgraded to 500Gb HDD, I remember I had to swap my old HDD back for a brief moment. It worked. That was back in firmware 2.* though.

 

[E2K]

cheers.

Yes, I realise swapping won't help - I read that re-inserting the HDD MAY fix the error, I know it's highly unlikely - but It's worth a shot. The problem I have is, if I take out the HDD and reinsert...will it then format when I switch on, or will it just ignore the fact I took it out and put it back in?

I just took the hdd out of the slim, turned it on and it stated that the hdd could not be found. After turning off and re-inserting it, it booted just fine.

 

[semitope]

No. it wouldnt even know you took out the hdd in the first place. Unless sony got paranoid about that as well... I have taken out my hdd a couple times and it was like it never got removed when i powered back on

 

[goonergaz]

thanks guys...it didn't fix the issue, but at least I now know if I fix it the data is safe