PlayStation®3 Support

[valentin_bugilan]

Hey guys, my PS3 hard drive started clicking and making weird noises a month ago. I started every once in a while at first and then began happening more and more often. I fully formatted the hardrive but it didn't help at all. Then one day it just fried. I took a laptop hard drive I had laying around (almost the exactly equivalent) and wiped it and popped it into the PS3. I downloaded the firmware off the support page and put it on a thumb drive and went through the instructions and set the PS3 up. Unfortunately, it freeses all the time and doesnt play games or anything. It half works... Starts up, but wont let you do anything. So, I tried to format it, thinking it may clean everything and download everything correctly. It wont go past 0%, even after 18 hours. I've tried full and quick format. I freakin give up!

Any suggestions?

[gkpama00]

The hard drive that you used is probably not compatible with 1.5Gbps SATA interfaces, so it won't work in the PS3.  Not all SATA drives that will fit in the console, are compatible with it.

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

---

valentin_bugilan wrote:

Hey guys, my PS3 hard drive started clicking and making weird noises a month ago. I started every once in a while at first and then began happening more and more often. I fully formatted the hardrive but it didn't help at all. Then one day it just fried. I took a laptop hard drive I had laying around (almost the exactly equivalent) and wiped it and popped it into the PS3. I downloaded the firmware off the support page and put it on a thumb drive and went through the instructions and set the PS3 up. Unfortunately, it freeses all the time and doesnt play games or anything. It half works... Starts up, but wont let you do anything. So, I tried to format it, thinking it may clean everything and download everything correctly. It wont go past 0%, even after 18 hours. I've tried full and quick format. I freakin give up!

Any suggestions?

---

The PS3 will auto-format the harddrive you put in it for you.  It could be possible that the

[valentin_bugilan]

PLYMCO_PILGRIM, I think you got cut off before you finished typing...

[valentin_bugilan]

This is the harddrive i'm replacing the old one with. It was cleared and I downloaded everything, but ti keeps freezing...

This is the original... Are they not compatible?

[gkpama00]

You can't tell by just looking at the drive.  Any SATA drive that you bought recently will have a rated data transfer speed of at least 3.0Gbps.  That doesn't matter. What matters is what the drive does when it is connected to a 1.5Gbps SATA interface.  It will either...

1. Notice that it is connected to an older device, and transfer data at 1.5Gbps, or
2. Continue to transfer data at its rated speed

If it is the second one, then the PS3 will malfunction because it loses data when it is transmitted faster than the console can receive it. Some drives list in their specifications all of the older speeds that they support, but many do not.  You will probably have to contact Hitachi technical support to find out if this particular drive supports a 1.5Gbps data transfer speed.  If it doesn't, then you bought an incompatible drive, and you will have to get a different one.