Transistion to new PS3

[vw_fetish]

So some of you know, my O-G B-C F-A-T 60GB PS3 bit the dust last week. Victim of the now all too common - YLOD (yellow light of death). Wife was playing Katamari Forever and it just turned itself off. Any attempts to turn it back on resulted in a Yellow light, followed by 3 beeps, followed by a flashing red light, followed by - ANGER!

Now, there are many reasons a PS3 may crash and burn, but the most common is that the solder that holds the CPU or GPU to the board fails. Time and heat are the main culprit. This really all boils down to the regulations in the electronics industry that forbid most companies from using lead-based solder. Lead-free solder is safer for the environment and landfills, but is much less reliable.

Found a local guy who has a proper reflow machine that heats up the board and melts the solder so the CPU/GPU are properly soldered in place. Be careful of those who use heatguns (all over youtube), as this is a very poor way to repair this issue and generally only last a few days to a few months at best.

While my fatty was being repaired, I picked up the latest revision of the 250GB slim PS3 (CECH-2101B). This bad boy requires approx 60% less power to run, which means it also runs much cooler and is less prone to the YLOD issue.

Once I got my fatty back, I connected it up to the internet, synced all of my trophies, de-activated all of my accounts, then connected it directly to the slim using a standard Cat-5 ethernet cable. Ran through the directions and used the "Data Transfer Utility" to dump my data over from the fatty to the slim.

Took about an hour, but I have everything back. No need to re-download anything. All you have to do is log into each account (need to know the password), activate each to the system, sync the trophies, and play your games. My bands, DLC, platinum symbols, EVERYTHING was all there.

Original fat PS3 is now wiped and reformatted back to factory settings.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[jimcallumuk1812]

That sounds encouragingly easy. Just to clarify – you need to delete all accounts on the old machine first then set them up on the new machine only AFTER you’ve done the transfer?

Did you have any shared DLC on there or was it all just yours?

So the question now is has anyone done anything similar with a new Hard Drive. If I run the backup utility on my existing 80GB PS3 then remove the hard disc then put in a new (say 250GB) hard disc and reinstall everything from the backup will this move everything including DLC or will I have to reinstall (not a huge problem as it’s the same PS3 as I downloaded it on in the first place?

[vw_fetish]

Hey Paul,

I had a total of 7 accounts on my system. Several were mine, a few were from a few very close friends I've shared DLC with.

Each RB DLC is limited to 5 active consoles. If you partake in DLC sharing, the account is automatically activated to your console as soon as you create it and log in. When you go under that account's download history and install a song, then that counts towards one of the 5 consoles allowed for that one song. As far as I know, I believe as soon as you deactivate that account, the DLC tied to that account will no longer be playable online.

If you plan to purchase a new console, then it is highly recommended that you deactivate the accounts on the old system first so it doesn't count as an additional console. This is done under the menu [Network] -> [Account Management] -> [System Activation]. (Must be logged in to that account in order to deactivate it). Make sure you know the password to the account, since the passwords are not saved when it is transferred to the new system. You will need to log into these accounts to activate them on the new system.

Actual Sony instructions here: us.playstation.com/support/systemupdates/ps3/ps3_315_update/index.htm

As far as upgrading your harddrive... I believe it should work as you described. You need to have an external drive plugged in to the 80GB PS3 and run the backup utility. That drive must be formatted FAT32. Install the new 250GB drive and perform a restore. As long as it's the same console, everything should be restored including DLC and game saves.

[jimcallumuk1812]

Jun 18, 2010 10:47:12 GMT -5 eric_1963 said:

Jun 18, 2010 3:12:08 GMT -5 jimcallumuk1812 said:

Thanks Eric

I’m very confused by all this. I understood that when you ran a back up it didn’t back up your DLC. I did a back up to a USB hard drive last night and the file size was 56 GB. I have an 80GB console so about 76GB of memory and I have about 8GB of free space (the RB files is 25GB). most likely it compresses the data for the backup so it will be a smaller size

So I wasn’t sure why the backup file was only 56GB unless it didn’t include all the DLC – but then that would be less than 56GB in total.

I’d also head that sometimes if you replace the Hard Drive it sometimes won’t play some of your existing DLC (if it’s shared) without creating a new game save (so I was contemplating waiting for the RB3 release so it doesn’t matter). The shared part I do not know about since I have no shared dlc except on my own console with the other psn names I have

However I then heard that transferring to a new PS3 transfers everything including all DLC (yours and shared) so that seemed like a better option. However I wasn’t sure if the new PS3 was then recognised as the one that originally downloaded the DLC (one of the 5) even though it wasn’t rather than the one it was originally downloaded on.

Haven't heard about this but I think it goes with the Psn name and not the console. the name I first started downloading with I dont use anymore but the new name does not show the old dlc as being downloaded so I have to keep that old name just in case I need to redownload again.. wish I could combine the two somehow..

Basically I’m confused by the whole thing so anything you can tell me would be useful.

And I tried taking the hard drive out of my PS3 once and couldn’t get the screw to turn.

I had a 20 gig ps3 to start with and I pulled out a 100 gig hard drive out of my laptop.. I did the backup and and replaced the hard drive and had no problems. had all dlc and bands and everything was as it was on the old hard drive.. I agree with vw that if you put it on a new console to deactivate it so it does not count has the five..

So after previous failures and with my Hard Drive down to it’s last couple of thousand MBs I took the plunge yesterday and (rather than buying a new 320GB PS3) replaced the 80GB HD with a new 250GB one. Not to tricky but not outrageously hard to do but it does have some odd affects on RB2.

I followed a video, some online instructions and some info given to me by a friend who had done it himself. First, he advised, make sure you download the latest operating system onto a flash drive in a folder labelled “PS3/UPDATE” as the 80GB and later models don’t save the operating system themselves.

So, having run a full back up onto an external HD and having downloaded the operating system from the UK PS3 site I went to work with a screwdriver. The old HD came out fairly easily (I was terrified of stripping the screws as I did last time) and the new one in similarly easily. I switched the PS3 back on and got an error message along the lines of “the correct Hard Drive has not been found” this was not dealt with in any of the instructions I had.

After searching for and going through several solutions on line to no avail I simply removed and replaced the new HD and realised I had not put it in properly. When I switched on again the PS3 wanted to download the operating system, which it did off the flash drive.

I then did a system restore from the external HD – it took about 2 hours but replicated everything, game saves, game data, DLC and all the accounts I had on the PS3. It got stuck at 98% for ages but eventually finished.

Then I put in RB2 – I tried to play one of my DLC tracks and got the message that says something like “the data is no longer available”. I then tried a one of the tracks that I got from DLC sharing with Hamreus with the same result. The solution online for this was to go into Account Management then deactivate and reactivate the account under Account Settings. I did this for both accounts and the songs appeared to work again – better than redownloading everything.

Well everything now seems to work except the imported AC/DC tracks which I can’t redownload as the export key can only be used once and the pack does not appear in my download list – any ideas?

[jimcallumuk1812]

I've now messaged the PS3 helpdesk to see if they can reactivate my AC/DC pack code so I can redownload - the only alternative is buying the disc again.

[vw_fetish]

Strange... the AC/DC pack is in my download history. I even let my friend log into my account and download all of my DLC from the history, including the AC/DC pack. It was a large download, but never required a new key or AC/DC disc to work.

[jimcallumuk1812]

I called PS3 Europe who said I had to speak to EA games and a very helpful chap gave me a new code so I have the tracks back and the file is now in my download history

[vw_fetish]

awesome! \m/