New PS3 Firmware Causing HDD Upgrade Problems?

Channard writes "While there have been occasional reports of previous PS3 firmware upgrades causing system crashes and so forth, Sony's new firmware upgrade for the system, 3.41, is apparently stopping PS3 owners from upgrading their hard disks. This problem has been encountered by many users on Sony's forums and occurs when you try to put a new hard disk into a PS3 that already has the firmware upgrade installed. The general course of action for upgrading a PS3's drive is that you download the latest PS3 firmware onto a memory stick and, after swapping the hard drive in the PS3, plug the stick in, allowing the PS3 to properly prepare the disk for use. But as of upgrade 3.41, the PS3 fails to recognize the firmware on the stick, complaining that it can't proceed until you insert the correct firmware. Repeating the process and re-downloading the firmware does not fix the problem, as I can confirm, having encountered the problem myself. Users can put the old hard disk back in, provided they've not reformatted it for some other purpose, so all is not lost. Sony have apparently told gaming website CVG that 'The information available to our Consumer Services Department does not suggest that this is a problem PlayStation owners are likely to experience when upgrading the HDD with 3.41 update.' This seems to fly in the face of the currently available information — although whether or not this statement was issued by Kevin Butler is unclear. Either way, PS3 owners encountering this problem will likely have to wait a few days for a fix and use their old HDDs for now."

Comments

What's up with companies lately?

[Aladrin]

There have been so many companies in denial lately... Customers complain about a legit problem and they say 'It's not a problem. You're doing it wrong.' and try to ignore it. Then it blows up on them and they only respond when faced with hundreds of lawsuits. Seriously guys, start listening to your customers.

Re:What's up with companies lately?

[adolf]

It's not just "these days." And it's not just mass-market gear.

I can count on one hand the number of expensive products (think $40,000 to $800,000) that actually worked, as advertised and promised, out of the box. Everything else (I don't think I have enough fingers to count these systems) was broken, even if it'd already been around in production and use for more than a decade.

Fortunately, these low-volume widgets are usually produced by relatively small companies, and it's not a completely harrowing experience to set up a conference call with their tech support, the engineer who designed it, and a responsible party (CEO or owner).

But even at this price range, the first suggestion is always "You're doing it wrong." Which, sometimes, I actually am (I'm not perfect). Sometimes it's a software fix that needs put together, other times it's hardware. One time, we had to send a bunch of expensive PTZ cameras back (which were mounted on 100' towers) for fixes because their internal grounding structure was gorfed such that they kept blowing up without provocation.

In another case, we had engineers from another country on-site for days at a time, fixing real problems that they were initially claimed were impossible. This was successful, thankfully, but once we got it all working correctly they killed the entire (years-old, generally stable, best-of-breed) product line. (WTF?)

Disclaimer: I work with communications and control systems, not the IT stuff typical of Slashdot. My experience with IT things has been pretty good, but then we don't really ever use any non-mass-market IT stuff since we don't ever need to. I'd be interested in knowing if folks ever have similar problems with (say) low-volume/high-end Cisco or NetApp gear, or if my career is uniquely doomed to consist largely of making companies fix the stuff that they sold us.

Remember!

[Daetrin]

The PS3, it only does everything! (Where "everything" does not include all the features removed by hardware or software "upgrades" since the release of the original model.)

Re:You're surprised?

[Reapman]

Or... maybe... it's a bug? Just throwing it out there.

Old problem

[phoenix0783]

I've had this problem in the past. When I used a usb hdd instead of a thumbdrive, everything worked fine. Don't ask me why, though...

Peanut butter cups

[GrumblyStuff]

"Hey! You got computer upgrade problems in my console!"

"You got simplified game design and locked down, monetization of normally free extras and support in my computer games!"

Sigh.

I remember this same conversation.

[Yosho-sama]

The day that PSN bugged out on Feb 29.

I kept reading about how this was Sony's plot to get everyone to upgrade to the new models in order to keep users from having access to the Other OS feature.

You guys need to chill the fuck out. It's a bug. Sony announced in advance that they were removing the Other OS feature from the firmware. They announce every time they release a firmware removing something. I'm not the Other OS removal wasn't a completely dick move (which it was), but they are always straight forward and have never made any (noticed) stealth changes to the firmware. Besides, I think they have enough Class Action Lawsuits on their plates to go and brick their own product for an unannounced, unreleased proprietary hard drive format.

Re:I remember this same conversation.

[Yosho-sama]

It's funny that you mention all that, cause all of that has nothing to do with the Sony PS3 firmware bugs, i.e. what this conversation is about.

Re:Just use a CD - that is the GENERAL way to do i

[ect5150]

No way man... I'm over there in the forums with this problem. I have tried CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, USB Drives, External HDD.. others have tried all sorts of variations, even people that have done this successfully in the past - everything comes up bupkiss for a lot of the new models if you had already installed the new firmware on the old HDD, and are just upgrading or replacing the drive. I'm lucky because my old HDD still works, but others old HDD crapped out - so they are stuck with a paperweight until this is sorted out.

Okay, this is the easy fix.

[Khyber]

Mirror your old drive's contents onto the new drive (Sony even provided a software backup feature IRC for this purpose.)
Install in PS3.
Works like a charm.

Seriously, external media just sucks and is not system-critical to operation. Use system-critical components for the transfer, and you won't have much of an issue.

Re:You're surprised?

[CronoCloud]

Or the person involved didn't format the new drive properly, or follow instructions. There is always some idiot complaining that their firmware bricked their PS3 on slashdot right after a new firmware is announced. Slashdot is a sucker for anti-Sony whining without substantiated claims. Hell I've seen people claiming firmware takes away features that are still in there...just renamed or moved, or that work differently than before, a la:

"Sony took away my ability to listen to music while web browsing"

Do you have the new ability to output sound at higher khz on? you can only play music while browsing if output is set to 44.1

"oops"

"Sony took away my ability to use my new external hard drive"

Is it NTFS, if so, won't work.

"oops"

"The web browser text input doesn't work right!"

Earlier you mentioned you had to switch to SDTV because your HD set broke, you do realize that the text input has always worked like that on SD

"oops"

Yes, yes, be miffed at SCEA for taking away OtherOS by overestimating Geohot's abilities, but geezus don't automatically assuem the worst every time.

Only later models

[jonabbey]

The original PS3 models probably don't suffer from this, as they use on-board flash ram chips to hold the firmware.

Later versions of the PS3 cut out those flash ram chips as a cost-saving measure, in favor of bootstrapping the firmware from the hard drive. These models store the firmware on the drive, and these are the ones that might have this problem.

Re:ahhh sony

[dltaylor]

>> So it's a decent BlueRay player and I still have the games I purchased.

Except it also requires software updates to handle newer Blue Ray discs.

Re:Meh

[diodegod]

Running 3.15 here too, don't want to lose the OtherOS. Do OtherOS-capable PS3s fetch more than regular PS3s? I could sell this and use the money to not buy Sony stuff.

Patch vs Full fw image?

[anomaly256]

I notice the usual download for the 3.41 update is a PATCH image not a full image. Perhaps the problem is people aren't putting a FULL 3.41 image on their usb sticks? Just an idea..

Update: HD replacement worked perfectly

[nacturation]

Update: just swapped out the 60GB HD with a 500GB Hitachi HD and zero problems. Swap, boot, format, done. System info is showing 413GB/465GB free. System software: Version 3.41. I don't know if the slim versions only experience this problem, but it worked flawlessly on an original 60GB model. Now off to restore my backup.

Re:Some points..

[Channard]

Apparently not, no.

Re:Oh God...

[vuffi_raa]

this is a stupid mistake that sony made- normally you have to download the entire firmware, this is the first time that sony has experimented in releasing an incremental update so that the update only takes a couple of minutes instead of the usual half hour- most probably they will either need to make the software request additional components that will need to be on the thumb drive or create a drive formatting in the flash that allows for an incremental upgrade or just allow you to download the entire firmware from the website- I have inched my way up the drivespace ladder with spare drives that I have had sitting around so I went from a 40 to a 60 to a 120 so I have gone through the backup/install/load firmware process a few times now.