Hi Folks ,
I had gotten recently a PS3 with a 40 GB had drive and decided to get a 250 GB drive to replace it . I got a Samsung (the same Hard drive PS3’s come with ) 250GB 5400 2.5 drive . It was very easy replacing the hard drive . If you do a search on Google you will find multiple sites . Even Youtube has some videos on it . So I’m not going to get into it . What I wanted to explain is 2 things :
I think they re-engineered the PS3 because my PS3 Hard drive slides straight in as apposed to Sideways like earlier models . Also the screws were a pain to unscrew (if you have the wrong tools you need precision tools Philips ) .
Now for the part that took me a long time to find out . So I replaced the Drive booted up expecting to format the drive but got an error stating that the system needed 2.20 Firmware (Software to load ) . I originally thought I had a bad drive and most people might think the same . No matter how you slice it …it looked as though I was stuck . I searched the Internet to find out if anyone else ran into this problem . One person I found had so here is what you need to do .
After replacing the Hard drive plug in a Flash drive with the 2.20 update on it but create the following file structure on the flash drive .
PS3>Update>(Your 2.20 firmware upgrade file ) . Remember that your flash drive has to be FAT32 .
When you boot up the system it will say it cannot start unless you reformat with the 2.20 software and it tells you to press the 2 middle buttons on he controller (Start and the other one forgot the name ) simultaneously. It will then look at the flash drive and proceed to format your new hard drive and you will good to go .
Hope this helps someone .
Chris
thanks, I’m having the same problem. Hope I can get it to work.
Khanh
Comment by Khanh — April 11, 2008 @ 7:48 pm
Thank you so much, I did it. Thanks for your instrution.
Comment by Khanh — April 11, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
I had this exact problem and was stuck. Thanks a lot man. This really helped me out.
Comment by Arkum — April 24, 2008 @ 5:27 am
Yesterday. I bought PS3 40 GB at Amazon.$399.99
Comment by PS3 40 GB — April 29, 2008 @ 7:30 pm
I had the same problem. I replaced the 40gb Hitachi with a 250gb Western Digital Scorpio drive. I used a CD-R disk and burned the 2.30 update.
Comment by Vmantrance1 — May 7, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
Oh by the way… I was up and running in 10 minutes from the time the disk was inserted. The 250gb HDD yields 205gb of free space.
Comment by Vmantrance1 — May 7, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
Cool I’m glad that my pain has helped out !
Chris
Comment by Chris — May 7, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
Just wanted to add my 2 cents. I was having the same problem and even exchanged two drives before I figured out what the problem was. I had copied the .pup file to my flash drive but did not realize that the file size was 0kb. After two days and a lot of frustration and wasted time I discovered it and downloaded the update again. Everything ran fine after that. Such a small thing and so much time wasted! Maybe this will help someone else.
Gregg
Comment by gregg — July 2, 2008 @ 3:43 pm