Wei, my adopted niece, is a happy little thing with her PS3. She had a 40G before I purchased my 80G two weeks ago. What persuaded me to get this versatile machine was not so much Wei, but witnessing a close buddy enjoying Grand Theft Auto on his.
Wei maxed out her 40 sometime back and asked me to upgrade it for further downloads and game saves. I was lazy to learn the procedure but when I got mine, I thought it was an excellent opportunity to do so, having already embraced Home where Home-Spaces are saved as you move around. Two weeks of Home and other downloads left me with 20G (out of 76 at start-up).
Firstly, some blogging and research was in order. Most web tutorials walked the procedure like a breeze but I noticed a major step missing. Installing the system update file named PS3UPDAT.PUP into the fresh drive, without which the fresh drive does not start-up the unit. Only the PlayStation Knowledge Centre has the information and the PS3UPDAT.PUP download and I thank some posters on the PlayStation3 forum for directing me.
Maybe this step is only necessary for those (like myself) who updated the OS to Version 2.53 before attempting to upgrade the hard-drive. Version 2.53 was available December 5th 2008 and I noticed most tutorials were posted before the date or maybe (just jesting), hard-drive manufacturers sponsoring the tutorials wanted to make it look easy.
To upgrade to 320G I started with these:-
2.5” SATA Seagate Momentus 320G 5400rpm (for my unit) – RM215
2.5” SATA Western Digital Scorpio Blue 320G 5400rpm (for Wei's unit) – RM218
16G Thumb drive (‘Thumb’)
160G External drive (‘External’)
Plastic Tweezers
Philips screwdriver
USB Keyboard (on standby for Initial Setup of fresh drive)
Steps I employed:-
Fat-formatted External.
Backed up current hard-drive date via Backup Utility onto the External.
Fat-formatted Thumb
Created in the Thumb a folder named PS3 and a subfolder within named UPDATE – used upper-case letters.
Downloaded from the PlayStation Knowledge Centre the updated named PS3UPDAT.PUP ('Pup file') into my Mac and transferred the Pup file into the UPDATE subfolder
Placed the PS3 (cold) flat on table
Removed drive bay cover with plastic tweezers. Strong finger-nails are the safest.
Removed blue screw and slid out the drive with the L-shape handle.
Removed existing drive (after removing four stainless steel screws on both sides) and replaced fresh drive in bay. Used Loctite on four screws
Slid bay in fully and fixed blue screw
Connected power cables. Inserted Thumb with Pup file in one USB slot and wired the controller in the other slot
Switched on the PS3. Prompt asked me to press Select and Start simultaneously which I did. It detected the Pup file and started uploading it, performing what it called ‘Initial Setup’ where your User name and Internet setting is required. At this point I removed the wire from the controller and plugged in the USB Keyboard. (Note Thumb is active on the other USB slot). The keyboard is recommended for the settings.
Once Pup file upload was done, XMB began and it was music to my ears. Phew! I was keeping fingers crossed that it would not turn into a brick like hundreds of iPhones do everyday.
Removed (non-blinking) Thumb and plugged in External (containing backed up data from original 80G hard-drive
Went to System settings > Backup Utility > Restore and backed up data from External to the fresh 320G drive.
Restoration took 90 minutes but everything from wallpapers to game saves to Home Spaces was back on the new drive. A fresh 320G starts at 298.
Checked with Sony. Warranty intact subject to the following. Keep your original drive unformatted. Use only drives (new) listed on the PlayStation website. Keep receipts. Use only 2.5” 5400 rpm drives.
I have uploaded DVD’s onto the drive and I am now trying to shoe-horn Blue-Rays via an external. Is that possible ? Wei, It is your turn for some sleepless nights.
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