Hi, I'm new to custom firmware and need help.

[FFSR-CC]

Hi guys I'm new here.

First and foremost, I hope you're all doing ok. So, recently, I've contracted covid, got tested and results came as positive. I am currently home quarantined and I'm dying of boredom. I've been stuck here for 7 days now with nothing to do. That said, I remembered that years ago, (probably 2 or 3 years) my cousin gave me a Jailbroken PS3 slim 500 gb but haven't really used it aside from playing games that are stored inside it. So now, out of my genuine curiosity, I decided to give it a go.

I have been watching a lot of guides on Youtube but most of them are all technical jargon to me, some of the terms don't even understand which prompted me to look at FAQs over the internet. Despite my efforts, there are still some things that I do not understand. I'll try to be as detailed as possible about the issues I'm having. Also, all sorts of references were linking me to this website, so I figured that this would be the best website to get support from.

1. My cousin also gave me an external hard drive from 2 or 3 years ago and it had some games on it. Some of the games are loading fine off of the external hard drive, but there are other games that don't. When I opened the external hard drive (Fat32), it contained The Last Of Us, Dead space and tomb raider, all of which are not working, they all get stuck on a black screen or a loading screen of some sort.

2. I want to understand what I have with me. With this, I mean what type of cfw I'm running, what version of it I'm running. A walkthrough of how I can tell what version I have would be extremely appreciated.

3. What is the difference between redump, iso, and game folder format, which one is better, which one to avoid and what to expect. The reason why I asked this is, I saw a youtube video of mrmario and he was transferring games from his external hard drive into his internal, but when I do it, it says operation failed or cancelled. How do I know if it's an ISO file, how do I know if the games I have are folder files? Are there any specific steps that needs to be followed in order to make these games work?

4. I saw that there's Managunz and Rebug tool inside this thing. Aside from that I also saw that there's Multiman and Webman. I don't really know what they are for. Should I avoid them? I'm afraid I might click on something without knowing what I'm doing and I might brick or break the actual system itself.

5. Uncharted 2 seems to be running fine on the external hard drive, but when I tried to copy it to the internal hard drive, it is giving me some glitches. I also saw that there's an option inside multiman that stated "Copy as ISO" or "Create ISO" or something like that. If I do this, what will happen? Will it break the original copy on the hard drive??

I may have some followup questions, I'm still trying to wrap my mind about this. Really sorry if these questions are a bit noobish, I have tried to go to reddit but I wasn't getting the details that I needed. If I posted this on the wrong section, please help me move it to the right one.

Thanks in advance guys and stay safe!

Regards,
Carlos.

As an additional note,

I have tried to get the game discs from her (my cousin) but her boyfriend doesn't want to lend it to me due to my condition as well as the fact that he's a collector and is afraid that I might damage the physical game. I'll buy a couple of games that I want to play as soon as my quarantine is over.

Sorry, I don't see any options to edit my post. Please feel free to merge all three posts hehehe.

Another Addition, I'm really not sure if the blue ray reader or lens is still working. Is there any way to test it without an actual game disc or a blu-ray disk?

 

[Henman]

ok ik how to help with your first problem look what cfw it says your on when you turn your system on it should say for example rebug or evilnat now once you figure that out go to system info

 

[FFSR-CC]

ok ik how to help with your first problem look what cfw it says your on when you turn your system on it should say for example rebug or evilnat now once you figure that out go to system info

Aha! Thank you so much. Apparently, this thing is also running cobra. I have another question. Why is it that every time I try to run a game from the external hard drive, it would say "Verifying files" and then it would proceed and say something like "Installing files to HDD Cache" but it doesn't really do anything from there. There's a progress bar but it's not doing anything. I tried it just before replying to your post and it's just stuck there.

 

[FFSR-CC]

I'm new to this scene have little to no idea how cfw works. I am trying to learn.

 

[Coldheart2236]

Jailbroken PS3 slim 500 gb

That must be a hard drive your cousin swapped out, as I believe the highest stock hard drive capacity for a slim PS3 is 320GB. Also, to confirm: when you boot up the PS3, is the coldboot (i.e. the PS3 logo and wave) different e.g. Rebug or Ferrox? In other words, are you certain you are running CFW?

 

[atreyu187]

Well first thing you are gonna need to try to repair your file system. Press & hold the power button. System will shut off then once it is off press and hold the power button again till the systems beeps twice.


This is how you access recovery menu. From there plug in the controller via USB. Choose file system repair then do it again and rebuild your database. With it holding upon installing the game means either A you have a corrupt HDD we can attempt to fix. If not B you may need a new HDD but let's try to restore and repair first.

Feel free to PM me directly. Always happy to help but if I don't answer right away I will respond I just work a lot but I'll answer if no one helps you from here.

 

[FFSR-CC]

That must be a hard drive your cousin swapped out, as I believe the highest stock hard drive capacity for a slim PS3 is 320GB. Also, to confirm: when you boot up the PS3, is the coldboot (i.e. the PS3 logo and wave) different e.g. Rebug or Ferrox? In other words, are you certain you are running CFW?

Hi, I appreciate your response. Doing this is intimidating especially to someone who doesn't know what he's doing.

To answer your question, yes I'm certain this is running cfw because when I turned it off completely and turned it back on like the gentleman posted above, I saw a message on the upper right corner of the screen saying webman 1.47.32 as well as 4.78 CEX cobra 7.3 NTFS [Full]

 

[FFSR-CC]

Well first thing you are gonna need to try to repair your file system. Press & hold the power button. System will shut off then once it is off press and hold the power button again till the systems beeps twice.


This is how you access recovery menu. From there plug in the controller via USB. Choose file system repair then do it again and rebuild your database. With it holding upon installing the game means either A you have a corrupt HDD we can attempt to fix. If not B you may need a new HDD but let's try to restore and repair first.

Feel free to PM me directly. Always happy to help but if I don't answer right away I will respond I just work a lot but I'll answer if no one helps you from here.

Hi there, thank you so much for your reply. There was another guy that said that my post was useless, I really appreciate the help. I'll try to do your instructions right this very moment. Thanks!

 

[atreyu187]

Hi there, thank you so much for your reply. There was another guy that said that my post was useless, I really appreciate the help. I'll try to do your instructions right this very moment. Thanks!

There is a lot of self entitled people in the PS3 scene but that being said there is a ton of good people as well.


That being said your info is very vague but you are new and we all gotta start somewhere. Always give as much info as you can as it helps us rule out certain issues. Info that will help us next time.

What firmware, CEX,DEX &/or Cobra
What software you are running
How are you loading the files
If your running plugins
What exactly happens to cause said issue

 

[FFSR-CC]

There is a lot of self entitled people in the PS3 scene but that being said there is a ton of good people as well.


That being said your info is very vague but you are new and we all gotta start somewhere. Always give as much info as you can as it helps us rule out certain issues. Info that will help us next time.

What firmware, CEX,DEX &/or Cobra
What software you are running
How are you loading the files
If your running plugins
What exactly happens to cause said issue

Hi! I did exactly what you told me and it said that it was corrupted. The ps3 is now showing a bar that says "Restoring... Do not turn off the system" and it's about 21% right this moment. I'm following your guide to the letter so if I'm doing this right, I the next thing I need to do is to rebuild the database by performing the same steps you mentioned above. Upon doing all this, I'll try to transfer the game and see what happens. Really appreciate this, it may not sound much but coming from a noobish person like me, it really means a lot!

Edit: It restarted already, I'll do the database thing and give you an update.

Edit 2: I've completed the restore. Now i'm selecting the rebuild database and it says:

"Are you sure you want to rebuild the database on the system storage?

If you rebuild the databse, messages, playlists and other saved information will be deleted. It may take a few hours to rebuild the database."

If I proceed with this, would it delete all of the things stored inside this ps3?

 

[Coldheart2236]

when I turned it off completely and turned it back on like the gentleman posted above, I saw a message on the upper right corner of the screen saying webman 1.47.32 as well as 4.78 CEX cobra 7.3 NTFS [Full]

Yep, you're definitely on CFW then - just an older version as the latest is Evilnat's 4.88 Cobra CFW

atreyu's advice is what I'd go by for now, i.e. rebuilding the database and seeing what happens from there. All my PS1/2/3 backups are in ISO format which I mount using webMAN MOD from external (apart from PS2, as it's not possible to do so) which obviously you also have installed. Everything else is from the PS Store, which is installed on my internal hard drive.

 

[FFSR-CC]

Yep, you're definitely on CFW then - just an older version as the latest is Evilnat's 4.88 Cobra CFW

atreyu's advice is what I'd go by for now, i.e. rebuilding the database and seeing what happens from there. All my PS1/2/3 backups are in ISO format which I mount using webMAN MOD from external (apart from PS2, as it's not possible to do so) which obviously you also have installed. Everything else is from the PS Store, which is installed on my internal hard drive.

I appreciate your response! I'm following his instructions now and I have come across this message saying:

"Are you sure you want to rebuild the database on the system storage?

If you rebuild the databse, messages, playlists and other saved information will be deleted. It may take a few hours to rebuild the database."

I'm worried that if I do this, I may lose my profile, my game saves as well as the actual games on the HDD itself. Should I proceed? The reason I'm worried is, I don't have the physical copies of these games right now with me so if doing this wipes the system completely, I'm going to be left with nothing.

 

[Coldheart2236]

I appreciate your response! I'm following his instructions now and I have come across this message saying:

"Are you sure you want to rebuild the database on the system storage?

If you rebuild the databse, messages, playlists and other saved information will be deleted. It may take a few hours to rebuild the database."

I'm worried that if I do this, I may lose my profile, my game saves as well as the actual games on the HDD itself. Should I proceed? The reason I'm worried is, I don't have the physical copies of these games right now with me so if doing this wipes the system completely, I'm going to be left with nothing.

From PS3DevWiki:

This can be a useful feature if you have lost files on your system for no apparent reason. Try using this feature to see if it can restore those files. This will also rewrite corrupted files within the database, potentially eliminating future issues. This feature should not erase any of your saved data or settings (except some PSN account information - explained in next paragraph.
Deletes messages, playlists, changes made on "Information" screens, trimming information for pictures in "Photo", video thumbnails, video playback history and video resume information. Will also "unregister" your PSN account with your system - anything that needs your PSN information to run correctly, like trophies or games that require trophies with a PSN account to be linked, will not work. To fix, either sign in to PSN or for systems </=3.55, edit the xregistry.sys to have your PSN email and password. This operation may take a long time depending on the type and number of data items.

You won't lose any saved data, installed games, your profile or other stored content other than what is described above.

As for re-activating your console for any games/DLC etc. linked to your PSN account; you would first need to update to 4.88 CFW - I'd also recommend updating webMAN MOD to its latest version - get it here

This is necessary to mitigate ban risk from signing in to PSN on a modded console. Before attempting to sign in, you will need to press R2+Triangle together which will clear CFW history and syscalls, making it 'safer' to sign in to PSN to re-activate your console (if necessary).

I'm happy to clear up anything you're not sure of as you go along, but just for now take it a step at a time

 

[FFSR-CC]

From PS3DevWiki:You won't lose any saved data, installed games, your profile or other stored content other than what is described above.

As for re-activating your console for any games/DLC etc. linked to your PSN account; you would first need to update to 4.88 CFW - I'd also recommend updating webMAN MOD to its latest version - get it here

This is necessary to mitigate ban risk from signing in to PSN on a modded console. Before attempting to sign in, you will need to press R2+Triangle together which will clear CFW history and syscalls, making it 'safer' to sign in to PSN to re-activate your console (if necessary).

I'm happy to clear up anything you're not sure of as you go along, but just for now take it a step at a time

Really appreciate the help! I've completed the steps Atreyu187 mentioned. After the system rebooted on it's own, the very first thing I tried to do was to try to play the last of us off of the external hard drive. It's stuck saying "Installing Game files to HDD Cache, Please wait..." Then it says, "Installed 0/10305 MB. Remaining: 0:00 min" But it's not doing anything. After waiting several minutes, I tried to copy the actual game itself from usb0 to hd0 and it stops at around 7% then it says "Operation failed or cancelled"

The funny thing is, this external hard drive also has Uncharted 2 on it but it appears to be playing just fine. The Last Of Us has an indicator saying "Split" in red font. Idk if that matters but I'll try to be as detailed as I can. Apparently, Uncharted 2 also has "Split" on it.

 

[FFSR-CC]

bump

 

[AlexRhine]

bump

You never did answer, how are you loading your games? Do you load them from XMB (main menu), or do you launch another program (e.g. MultiMan) to load them?

Most of your games appear to be in "JB Folder" format. What this means is that the files dumped from the original disc game are "loose" inside you external hard drive instead of packed together in a single file (iso format). Fat-32 partitions have a 4gb file size limit, so if your game dump contains files which are over 4gb they will be split in order for them to be stored properly. However, they can't be loaded in their split form by default on the PS3, so they need to be cached inside your console before you are able to launch your game. That is the HDD cache message you're seeing.

In your hard drive, JB Folder games ("loose files") go inside the GAMES folder. PS3 ISO files go in the PS3ISO folder.

Redump ISOs are "images" (copies) of the data section of PS3 discs. They have been verified as being valid by Redump (a website that keeps hashes for several ROM dumps which you can use to verify your dump). These dumps are encrypted, so they can't be used on the PS3. Furthermore, Redump hasn't yet made public the hashes for PS3 games.

ManaGunZ, MultiMan, and Irisman are backup loader programs for your PS3. You can use them to load backup, copy files, and some other functions. WebMAN-MOD is a plugin for the PS3 that can act as a backup loader, but also has other features like fan-control, spoofing, etc. Rebug is the type of CFW you are running (I think). Rebug Toolbox is a program which you can use to toggle features for your Rebug CFW.

Your dumps in your external drive appear to be corrupted, so there's not much you can do if you're not able to re-dump them. Perhaps turning them to ISOs on your PC can help (the split files should be merged together once you do). However, this enters the "gray area" for the forum rules. You technically don't own the original games, so the backups you're running could be considered pirated material.

 

[FFSR-CC]

You never did answer, how are you loading your games? Do you load them from XMB (main menu), or do you launch another program (e.g. MultiMan) to load them?

Most of your games appear to be in "JB Folder" format. What this means is that the files dumped from the original disc game are "loose" inside you external hard drive instead of packed together in a single files (iso format). Fat-32 partitions have a 4gb file size limit, so if your game dump contains files which are over 4gb they will be split in order for them to be stored properly. However, they can't be loaded in their split form by default on the PS3, so they need to be cached inside your console before you are able to launch your game. That is the HDD cache message you're seeing.

In your hard drive, JB Folder games ("loose files") go inside the GAMES folder. PS3 ISO files go in the PS3ISO folder.

Redump ISOs are "images" (copies) of the data section of PS3 discs. They have been verified as being valid by Redump (a website that keeps hashes for several ROM dumps which you can use to verify your dump). These dumps are encrypted, so they can't be used on the PS3. Furthermore, Redump hasn't yet made public the hashes for PS3 games.

ManaGunZ, MultiMan, and Irisman are backup loader programs for your PS3. You can use them to load backup, copy files, and some other functions. WebMAN-MOD is a plugin for the PS3 that can act as a backup loader, but also has other features like fan-control, spoofing, etc. Rebug is the type of CFW you are running (I think). Rebug Toolbox is a program which you can use to toggle features for your Rebug CFW.

Your dumps in your external drive appear to be corrupted, so there's not much you can do if you're not able to re-dump them. Perhaps turning them to ISOs on your PC can help (the split files should be merged together once you do). However, this enters the "gray area" for the forum rules. You technically don't own the original games, so the backups you're running could be considered pirated material.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

1. This ps3 has games stored in the internal HDD. There's two ways that I launch games, depending on the title I'd like to play at a particular time namely:

A) I go to xmb under games I select a folder named webMAN Games and then it will load all the games stored on the internal hard drive, all the games listed here, I have no problems loading whatsoever.

B) If I want to play the games on the external hard drive, I go to another folder called "Unknown" under the Game tab in XMB and select "mmCM", from there it will bring me over to a different interface which will load both the games on the internal hard drive and on the external hard drive.

Another issue that I want to clarify is, I have tried to copy the games that aren't working from the external hard drive into the internal hard drive to see if it makes a difference, when I try to copy it, it just gets stuck on the transfer screen and then it would say Operation failed or cancelled.

I have tried to create an iso image of the last of us, but when i tried to load it from multiman, it would bring me back to XMB and when I select the disc icon that says The Last of Us, it would just go to a black screen and then go back into XMB as if nothing happened.

When I try to load it off of the external hard drive, it just says installing hdd cache but it's just stuck on 0%, last night, I waited over 4 hours to see if it would do anything different, slept on it but when I woke up, it was just stuck at that same exact message and it was still on 0%

I encountered the same thing when I played Uncharted 2 Among thieves, it ran the same HDD cache installation but it went all the way through and I seem to be playing the game without any issues whatsoever off of the external hard drive.

Additional information:

mmCM Verssion: 04.80.00
Ps3 System firmware: 4.78 [SC-35 | PL3]
IP Address: [Not Available]
Free Memory: 60036 KB
Free HDD Space: 67.84 GB
Firmware Mode: COBRA 7.30 compatible

I see what you mean about the gray area. I didn't own this PS3 originally, it was just given to me because she had another slim which is a limited edition or something. She also mentioned that this particular ps3 has a history of YLOD or something so instead of selling it online 2 or 3 years ago, she just gave it to me. The problem is, I never really bothered with it until now. I however, know for a fact that she owns or owned these games physically. Personally, I think it was her boyfriend that set up everything on this ps3. I'm just confused if I'm doing something wrong since not all of the games appear to be loading off of the external hard drive.

 

[AlexRhine]

A) I go to xmb under games I select a folder named webMAN Games and then it will load all the games stored on the internal hard drive, all the games listed here, I have no problems loading whatsoever.

B) If I want to play the games on the external hard drive, I go to another folder called "Unknown" under the Game tab in XMB and select "mmCM", from there it will bring me over to a different interface which will load both the games on the internal hard drive and on the external hard drive.

mmCM is an alternate name for multiMAN. That's what you're using to load your external backups. However, it's odd that webman isn't listing the games in your external device; scanning usb ports might be disabled in webman settings. In what folder are your games stored in your external hard drive?

And because you don't have the original disc, I can't help you much. As I said before, you dump may be corrupted, missing files, etc. Or it may be problem with MultiMan. Or with your CFW. But we can't really pin it down without the original disc.

 

[atreyu187]

mmCM isn't another name for multiMAN. Back when Cobra was done via a dongle deank did a special version of his manager as they had ISO support but we did not at the time unless we bought the dongle.

mmCM handed the Cobra side while the other was basically made useless since what we can do with a normal CFW we can do with Cobra. Back then a good portion of the scene shunned the patches Cobra put in place as they were co spidered dirty till Habib and others cleaned it up. Once us peasant "normal" CFW users finally got access he added it but could not migrate it into the main interface. Deank gave up development before Cobra became common place and everyone wanted it.

Since the source remained closed despite deank saying he would release it once with was cleaned up that never happened. It used to be open source a long time ago but the app wasn't mature and others took his work so he no longer shared it. So that is why there are modes still.

So there are two modes multiMAN which most people don't use nowadays. In fact aside from being able to convert JB folders into an ISO there is no real need for that mode often. There are a few more advanced features but they are available with other apps now like NAS with PS3Netserv or the remote access for controlling your PS3 from another.

 

[FFSR-CC]

mmCM isn't another name for multiMAN. Back when Cobra was done via a dongle deank did a special version of his manager as they had ISO support but we did not at the time unless we bought the dongle.

mmCM handed the Cobra side while the other was basically made useless since what we can do with a normal CFW we can do with Cobra. Back then a good portion of the scene shunned the patches Cobra put in place as they were co spidered dirty till Habib and others cleaned it up. Once us peasant "normal" CFW users finally got access he added it but could not migrate it into the main interface. Deank gave up development before Cobra became common place and everyone wanted it.

Since the source remained closed despite deank saying he would release it once with was cleaned up that never happened. It used to be open source a long time ago but the app wasn't mature and others took his work so he no longer shared it. So that is why there are modes still.

So there are two modes multiMAN which most people don't use nowadays. In fact aside from being able to convert JB folders into an ISO there is no real need for that mode often. There are a few more advanced features but they are available with other apps now like NAS with PS3Netserv or the remote access for controlling your PS3 from another.

Would you suggest that I format this ps3 and jailbreak it on my own so I have complete grasp of everything? Would it be better if I do it that way? The downside of doing so is that I will no longer have access to the games inside the actual console. Like, delete all of the contents of this console and just start fresh? Possibly updating to latest ofw and then installing the latest cfw of my preference. Is there an actual benefit of doing so? Or would it be better if I just manually update the actual cfw of this console.

Man, I never thought doing this thing would be this complicated. I must admit, I'm having fun and it feels like I'm getting to know the actual console better. I just wish I'd have done this a lot sooner lmao.

mmCM is an alternate name for multiMAN. That's what you're using to load your external backups. However, it's odd that webman isn't listing the games in your external device; scanning usb ports might be disabled in webman settings. In what folder are your games stored in your external hard drive?

And because you don't have the original disc, I can't help you much. As I said before, you dump may be corrupted, missing files, etc. Or it may be problem with MultiMan. Or with your CFW. But we can't really pin it down without the original disc.

Thanks for trying. I really appreciate what you've done. Like I said before, it may not sound much but it really means a lot coming from someone that's literally new to this scene. It helped me understand how the cfw works a little better.