PS3 [SOLVED]PS3 HDD accidentally converted to GPT disk

runeblades

runeblades

Member
Let me start off by saying, yes I know, it was inherently stupid of me to click OK on the initialize screen in the windows disk manager.

What I wanted to do was clone the 500GB HD that I already had in the PS3 to a 500GB SSD. Not knowing that probably wouldn't work anyways after reading a bunch of similar posts. (should have just used the backup utility)

In one of those posts, someone mentioned you could probably do a sector by sector restore of the first couple of sectors to try and restore the disk in an effort to fix the disk.

Things that I've done so far:
  1. Creating a RAW disk image file with HDD Raw Copy Tools https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool (@ 70% now at time of posting)
  2. Installed the SSD and reinstalled the REBUG CFW 4.82 on it
  3. Extracted the eid_root_key file with the REBUG Toolbox tool
  4. Downloaded additional PS3 HDD tools:
    - PS3 HDD Toolbox by @ifcaro - PS3 HDD Toolbox 0.95.rar
    - PS3 HDD Studio v2.08 by @NDT - PS3HDDS208.rar
    - PS3 HDD Utility v1.00 by nullptr - PS3 HDD Utility v1.00.rar
    - PS3 HDD Reader v1 by @3141card - ps3_hdd_reader_windows.rar
    - PS3Xport PS3 Backup Manipulation Tool by @kakarotoks - Ps3Xport GUI by homeedog.zip
    - And of course last but not least the PS3Tools from @aldostools
  5. Research other posts for solutions

Next steps:
  1. Figure out if this is at all even feasible to fix or just abandon now and not waste any more time.
  2. See if any of the above tools can read the disk as is (I'm not betting on it) before I move on to other next steps
  3. Create RAW disk image of the new SSD so that I have sectors to write to the old HDD (I don't know which tool to use for this yet).
  4. Figure out how many sectors need to be restored (in AOMEI Partition Assistant I can see that there are now 2 partitions on the old 500GB HDD, the 1st partition is 15.98MB and the 2nd 465.74GB)
  5. Restore sectors and test with above tools
  6. Get disk working again, do a proper backup/restore

Other useful info:
  1. It's a fat PS3 model CECHL04
  2. It's fully operational again
  3. Old 500GB other than creating an image has further been untouched

Not all is lost:
  1. Losing the disk isn't the end of the world, it's more of a nuisance.
    I was lucky to have made a backup of all my saves on 1 profile earlier that day.
  2. Unfortunately, the trophies of the last game played did not sync and I can't get that save to work under my new profile. (42 hr gameplay and 65% trophies lost, ME2)
  3. All the games I had installed or copied to the PS3 I have backups of externally.
  4. I had another profile that I didn't copy the saves from, but also haven't used in over 5 years.

What makes this mistake even more painful is that I'm actually pretty tech savvy, I know my way around Linux and am comfortable running command line code if needed. Note to self, don't try to clone a HDD at 3 am after being frustrated with annoying load times o_O

So any tips, tricks, and feedback are welcome.

Thanks in advance guys.
 
habib said:
Restore first sector from your ssd which is now running on your ps3
I think it would fix it
Click to expand...

Thanks Habib, I'll give it a try later today. Need to find a tool that will allow me to restore individual sectors to a disk. If you know one of the top off your head, awesome. Otherwise google knows all. (likely) :)
 
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habib said:
Restore first sector from your ssd which is now running on your ps3
I think it would fix it
Click to expand...

IT WORKED!

I converted the raw .img file to a .vmdk to open up with vmware player (free)/workstation, then copied the 1st sector over and was able to read the contents of the vmdk with @aldostools PS3 HDD GUI v1.3

This is how I did it:
  1. insert new HDD
  2. Open HD Hacker tool
  3. set Drive to Operate to Physical Drive (MBR) and select the number disk of the PS3
  4. Set select sector to "First Sector (MBR)
  5. Read sector from Disk
  6. Save sector to file
  7. Swap out new HDD with old HDD
  8. Again set the right Physical Drive (MBR) disk number
  9. Load sector from file and select file
  10. Set select sector to "First Sector (MBR)
  11. Write sector on disk
  12. Open aldotools PS3 HDD GUI and verify!
 

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Im not much confident that your way of fixing this problem is going to fix it completly
The problem is when you "initialize" a hdd in windows with MBR it overwrites only the first sector (512 bytes)... but if you initialize it with GPT it overwrites 6 sectors (if i remember right)

If you format the same hdd several times in the same PS3... the first sector is identical in all them... but the next sectors are not identical (up to sector 6 overwritten by GPT)
So, is not posible to recover that 6 sectors entirelly

Is nice it did work for you (enought to boot the PS3 normally and allowing to recover your files)... but im guessing eventually the PS3 could complain about it and could show you some error that is going to force you to format the hdd
So... if i where you i would backup all important files, then format the hdd in the PS3, and then restore your files to "cleanup" all posible problems in the first 6 sectors

-----------
Btw, the easyest way to see the hdd contents (to read or write the first sectors), is by using a hexeditor (like HxD) and click in the tab "open device"
Is very fast to do and allows you to see the data of the first sectors in "raw"
 
Im looking at it, it seems GPT uses 32 sectors http://www.ntfs.com/guid-part-table.htm
the GPT reserves the first 32 sectors, so that the first used sector on every hard drive is LBA 34
Click to expand...
So GPT is a lot more bigger than MBR

If you initialize a PS3 hdd in windows with MBR you only lose 1 sector (and can be regenerated by formatting the same hdd in the PS3)... but with GPT is a carnage
 
The next thing I did after getting the HDD to work again was sync my trophies and go to the backup utility to do a backup of the drive. Place the SSD in there and install CFW 4.82 and go into the backup utility and restore all the data.

In the case someone else is not so lucky to get it working with 1 sector, you can incrementally do sectors with the HDD tool mentioned above, up to 16 sectors. So you should be good on the GPT part.

Best thing is to make an image of your HDD (and another backup of it somewhere) and then test with that, rinse repeat until you fix it.
 
runeblades said:
IT WORKED!

I converted the raw .img file to a .vmdk to open up with vmware player (free)/workstation, then copied the 1st sector over and was able to read the contents of the vmdk with @aldostools PS3 HDD GUI v1.3

This is how I did it:
  1. insert new HDD
  2. Open HD Hacker tool
  3. set Drive to Operate to Physical Drive (MBR) and select the number disk of the PS3
  4. Set select sector to "First Sector (MBR)
  5. Read sector from Disk
  6. Save sector to file
  7. Swap out new HDD with old HDD
  8. Again set the right Physical Drive (MBR) disk number
  9. Load sector from file and select file
  10. Set select sector to "First Sector (MBR)
  11. Write sector on disk
  12. Open aldotools PS3 HDD GUI and verify!
Click to expand...
many thanks bro
 
runeblades said:
Let me start off by saying, yes I know, it was inherently stupid of me to click OK on the initialize screen in the windows disk manager.

What I wanted to do was clone the 500GB HD that I already had in the PS3 to a 500GB SSD. Not knowing that probably wouldn't work anyways after reading a bunch of similar posts. (should have just used the backup utility)

In one of those posts, someone mentioned you could probably do a sector by sector restore of the first couple of sectors to try and restore the disk in an effort to fix the disk.

Things that I've done so far:
  1. Creating a RAW disk image file with HDD Raw Copy Tools https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool (@ 70% now at time of posting)
  2. Installed the SSD and reinstalled the REBUG CFW 4.82 on it
  3. Extracted the eid_root_key file with the REBUG Toolbox tool
  4. Downloaded additional PS3 HDD tools:
    - PS3 HDD Toolbox by @ifcaro - PS3 HDD Toolbox 0.95.rar
    - PS3 HDD Studio v2.08 by @NDT - PS3HDDS208.rar
    - PS3 HDD Utility v1.00 by nullptr - PS3 HDD Utility v1.00.rar
    - PS3 HDD Reader v1 by @3141card - ps3_hdd_reader_windows.rar
    - PS3Xport PS3 Backup Manipulation Tool by @kakarotoks - Ps3Xport GUI by homeedog.zip
    - And of course last but not least the PS3Tools from @aldostools
  5. Research other posts for solutions

Next steps:
  1. Figure out if this is at all even feasible to fix or just abandon now and not waste any more time.
  2. See if any of the above tools can read the disk as is (I'm not betting on it) before I move on to other next steps
  3. Create RAW disk image of the new SSD so that I have sectors to write to the old HDD (I don't know which tool to use for this yet).
  4. Figure out how many sectors need to be restored (in AOMEI Partition Assistant I can see that there are now 2 partitions on the old 500GB HDD, the 1st partition is 15.98MB and the 2nd 465.74GB)
  5. Restore sectors and test with above tools
  6. Get disk working again, do a proper backup/restore

Other useful info:
  1. It's a fat PS3 model CECHL04
  2. It's fully operational again
  3. Old 500GB other than creating an image has further been untouched

Not all is lost:
  1. Losing the disk isn't the end of the world, it's more of a nuisance.
    I was lucky to have made a backup of all my saves on 1 profile earlier that day.
  2. Unfortunately, the trophies of the last game played did not sync and I can't get that save to work under my new profile. (42 hr gameplay and 65% trophies lost, ME2)
  3. All the games I had installed or copied to the PS3 I have backups of externally.
  4. I had another profile that I didn't copy the saves from, but also haven't used in over 5 years.

What makes this mistake even more painful is that I'm actually pretty tech savvy, I know my way around Linux and am comfortable running command line code if needed. Note to self, don't try to clone a HDD at 3 am after being frustrated with annoying load times o_O

So any tips, tricks, and feedback are welcome.

Thanks in advance guys.
Click to expand...

Hello, good evening. I have exactly the same problem. Could you please help me?
 
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