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Latest PS3 Firmware Update Requires Hard Disk Wipe to Fix

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the entire-qa-department-is-fired dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier today Sony launched firmware V2.40 for the PS3 which is mandatory for online play. To my horror after installing the update my console wouldn't boot, and this appears to be a not uncommon problem affecting all ages and models of PS3s. Although there is rampant fanboy denial over at the official Playstation forums, the Kotaku article details the issue and has a suggested solution if you don't mind yanking your PS3's hard drive."

16 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Which is why... by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Which is why firmware upgrades like how MS/Nintendo/Sony have them are a bad idea. Rather then just small patches, a lot of them overwrite a lot of the base code. It would be like rather then just patching Windows, you formatted your HD and started over from backups, now the firmware upgrades aren't exactly like that, but it is similar to the risks that it takes. And most firmware updates don't *need* to be done in the first place, and the makers certainly shouldn't prevent you from online play if you don't upgrade unless it would be a natural by-product of the upgrade (like the online play server was moved or something). But really, upgradable firmware in game consoles is just a bad idea to use.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    1. Re:Which is why... by somersault · · Score: 4, Informative

      Since this problem can be fixed by simply reformatting the HD, obviously the actual firmware is fine, it's what has been installed on the HD that's borked..

      My system was fine with the update btw *shrug*

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      which is totally what she said
    2. Re:Which is why... by secolactico · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What is needed (I don't know if there is) is a "failsafe" boot image stored in ROM that does not get flashed. If a firmware upgrade screws the OS, the system will boot from this image and be able to get online and retrieve a fix. Or maybe revert to the old one.

      Or maybe even read the fix from a disk and apply it.

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      No sig
    3. Re:Which is why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      As you guessed, you can't use the PS3 until you've upgraded, if you've got a network connection. When you start it, it sees that there's a new update and refuses to allow you to play games until you've updated.

      Sure, you can fix it by wiping the hard drive and reupgrading. Great. There are only a few problems with that:

      1. You lose all your save games.
      2. You lose all your installed games. Games like DMC4 require a 20+ minute install before you can play them, and repeating that is NOT fun.
      3. You lose all your downloaded content. I'm told you can redownload content without rebuying it, PROVIDED IT'S STILL BEING SOLD, but I really don't want to test that.

      So, obviously you should back up first, right? Well, guess what:

      1. While MOST save games can be copied off the console, some CANNOT.
      2. Installed game data CANNOT be copied off the console.
      3. Downloaded content CANNOT be copied off the console.

      In short, you can backup CERTAIN save games, but not ALL save games.

      And most firmware updates don't *need* to be done in the first place, and the makers certainly shouldn't prevent you from online play if you don't upgrade unless it would be a natural by-product of the upgrade (like the online play server was moved or something).

      To be fair on this front, they did rip off Xbox Live's Achievement system in this update, so presumably some aspect of online play has changed.

      'Course, I'd imagine that would only affect servers and NOT clients, so there SHOULD be no reason for clients to update, but...

    4. Re:Which is why... by revengebomber · · Score: 4, Informative

      The PS3 actually stores the last 2 firmwares in its internal memory. When installing an update, it writes over the older one. On bootup, the PS3 (booting from a OTP ROM) will verify each firmware and boot the newer one. If one's corrupted, it boots the other.

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      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    5. Re:Which is why... by vbraga · · Score: 5, Informative

      From Xbox team blog:

      One of the first questions I get when someone hears I work on Xbox is "So, what operating system do you guys use? Windows 2000, right?" I am honestly not sure where the Win2K misperception comes from, but Xbox runs a custom operating system built from the ground up.

      --
      English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
  2. Backup early, Backup often by maniac/dev/null · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yikes. With consoles becoming more complex and more like computers with each generation, it looks like issues like this will become all too common. How long before someone brings a PS3 backup utility to market?

    1. Re:Backup early, Backup often by sanosuke76 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Err, the PS3 ships with one built into its system. You can, at any point, have it do a backup to a memory card (assuming you have a large enough one) or a USB-connected external hard drive.

      --
      My 229 is all the Sig I need http://thegunwiki.com/
    2. Re:Backup early, Backup often by machxor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Err, the PS3 ships with one built into its system. You can, at any point, have it do a backup to a memory card (assuming you have a large enough one) or a USB-connected external hard drive.

      Would mod you up if I could. It's true the PS3 has a backup/restore function build right into it. I've used this function to backup while trying to upgrade my hard drive. However I've never gotten the restore to work even though I've backed up to several external hard drives. Thinking about it now the hard drive I'm upgrading to came from a laptop and has a 4GB "recovery" partition that I wasn't able to remove in Windows. I assumed the PS3 would remove this partition and create one for the entire drive when I formatted it but honestly never checked. I'll have to plug it in when I get home and see how many/what size partitions it has on it.

    3. Re:Backup early, Backup often by sanosuke76 · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's because the "Restore" option is deceptively named. When I upgraded a friend's PS3 to 250GB a while back, I used 'restore', but all that was for was restoring the system defaults. If I recall correctly, in order to restore your backup you first go to the backup menu like you're going to take a backup, then there's a 'restore' option buried down in there. It wasn't exactly obvious on the first go, but we did get all his system settings migrated gracefully once we figured out which restore option to use. :)

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      My 229 is all the Sig I need http://thegunwiki.com/
    4. Re:Backup early, Backup often by somersault · · Score: 4, Informative

      PS3s have USB ports and the built in OS lets you back up your saved data easily to them. You're just spreading unecessary FUD without knowing what you are talking about.. I don't want to be overly critical because I end up doing similar things from time to time, but you just end up looking silly if you make baseless accusations like that.

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      which is totally what she said
    5. Re:Backup early, Backup often by bonehead · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you're having trouble with a stubborn partition that nothing seems to be able to remove for you, install it in a computer, boot up a Linux live cd, and try this from the command prompt:

      dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX bs=1M count=5

      hdX in the above refers to the hard drive. You may have to watch the boot messages to find out which value to use depending on how you connected it. It could also end up being sdX instead.

      That command will write 16 megs of zeros directly to the beginning of the hard drive, which will nuke the boot sector and partition table. After that, any partitioning tool will see it as a brand new, unpartitioned drive, and shouldn't give you any more grief.

  3. Re:Here's a bit of advice by NuclearError · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not all save games can be backed up - Rock Band, for instance. The PS3 just won't let you copy it. It used to be with consoles that if your hardware crapped out, you'd have your save games on a memory card or something. Now, you have to remember to back games up to a flash, if you're allowed to, so the fate of your data is not tied to the hardware. Just like PC games, huh?

    --
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  4. Breaking: The update's been pulled by Admodieus · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://kotaku.com/5021575/sony-pulls-ps3-240-firmware-after-reported-problems Looks like it needs a bit more QA.

    --
    "It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
  5. The 2.40 firmware has been pulled by mkraft · · Score: 5, Informative

    The firmware has been officially pulled by Sony for review. Even though it affected a minority of users, it must be pretty bad for Sony to do that.

    See the KB link.

  6. Rampant..? by Squozen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    'Rampant denial'? I updated last night and had no problems. I don't know that any of my PS3-owning friends had problems. I guess that makes us 'fanboys'.

    Point #1 - Any firmware update has the potential to go wrong, especially when it's as large as the PS3 firmware is (130Mb) and can be downloaded over flaky links and installed from potentially faulty hard drives.

    Point #2 - Wiping the drive shouldn't be an issue if people are running backups like they should be. Sony *do* provide a backup utility for this. Don't read this as an excuse for Sony - if the firmware is flawed, they should have done more testing, but EVERYBODY should be backing up their data if they care about it!