PS3HEN Help Me Avoid Format Please

[jasgan]

Hello. I have a PS3 slim with HFW 4.86 and HEN 3.01. and 1Tb HDD.For the last year I had almost 0 issues with it. Sometimes (usually 1 out of 10) my PS3 stuck. I had to take it out the ac cord and force a restart. I've never skipped the file system restore procedure (not once!) because from bitter experience I know that it can lead to an unavoidable system format. This time though, although the file system restore message appeared, and after I pressed yes upon restart the same message appeared again. To make a long story short, I got into a system restore loop. After 10 failed tries, I entered recovery mode and started file system restore from there. It started well enough, but around 20% a message appeared that stated that the hard disk was corrupt I need to be formatted. Since then I've tried countless time the system restore procedure (more than 20 times) but every time, at exactly 25% the format message appears.I also tried all other options in recovery mode ( default settings, rebuild database) but it always remain stuck in preparing screen. Surfing the Internet, I found out that some people had luck, taking out the PS3 hard disk, and using programs like HDD regenerator managed to bypass the various bad sectors, and upon re-entering the hard disk to the PS3, they had a successful start-up. Is this possible or am I doomed to repeat the format procedure? Also I don't understand since I was so careful why I entered a file system restore loop.Please help. Thank you in advance.

 

[sandungas]

Hdd regenerator works by magnetizing the sectors of the hdd platter in several passes
First pass it writes 0's, second pass writes 1's, and so on... to try to "wakeup" the atomic structure of the metal surface
But in my experience i can say this is a myth, it doesnt really works, the result after using HDD renenerator multiple times in a "old" hdd was for every round the "lazy" and "unreadable" sectors was located at different positions. And when trying to "split" it to install an OS in a area without problematic sectors the result is more problematic sectors appeared in the area that was supposed to not have problems

Moral of the story... HDD regenerator doesnt regenerates anything.... and incase you see some sectors regenerated they are going to "die" in the next days

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For the hdd of a PS3 containing real data is not useful anyway because is going to overwrite it
Also, the sectors of a PS3 hdd are encrypted... is not just a matter of restoring the heatlh of the sector... you are supposed to restore the original encrypted data
And incase the sector is damaged.... is imposible to recover the original data (because you cant read it, not even HDD regenerator is able to read the data that was located in a damaged sector)

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What you could do to have a better understanding of the exact problem of your hdd is to use a program named MHDD with the option "surface scan"
This doesnt writes any data in the hdd (so after the surface scan the data is exactly the same), but is going to tell you how many damaged sectors you have, and his exact position

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You did good in not bypasing any of the warnings to restore filesystem (that usually appears in the next boot after a firmware crash/freeze)
But personally i use to do it manually from recovery menu every few crashes/freezes
You know, sometimes after a freeze/crash doesnt appears that warning... incase i cummulate lets say... 5 or 10 of those (without advising me to restore filesystem), then i initiate it manually
Is just a prevention, but is not failproof

The real cause that made you reach that point was the cummulation of firmware freezes/crashes... everytime it happens there is a chance that the filesystem (software) or the hdd sectors (hardware) gets damaged
The feature to restore filesystem uses to detect and fix those problems, but sometimes the damage is so big that the manteinance tasks cant be completed :/

 

[Sulfvr]

This time though, although the file system restore message appeared, and after I pressed yes upon restart the same message appeared again. To make a long story short, I got into a system restore loop.

This happened to my ps3 once after a HEN initialization freeze. After pressing OK multiple times, i was like F-it and i pressed CANCEL instead. The loop stopped and Checking Filesystem Operation has completed. Since then, it never happened again.

 

[Sulfvr]

Sometimes (usually 1 out of 10) my PS3 stuck. I had to take it out the ac cord and force a restart.

You can press and hold the Power button for like 30 sec which will force the console to turn OFF. No need to take out the AC power cord.

 

[jasgan]

I actually did that quite a few times(first thing I always try), and upon startup I didn't even need to pass file restore.Unfortunately, this was one of those times that the power button didn't work at all so my only option was taking out the power cord.As far as my problem goes is there any chance for me to avoid format or at least secure my saves?