Testing PS3 HD, formating and rebuilding HEN, PS3 superslim.

[SteveGW]

So, after latest update install of HeN 2.3.1, my PS3 was black screening everything and a lot of xmb function stopped working or froze PS3 when activated. After much discussion I decided that I needed to check my PS3 hard disc drive (and replace if found faulty) and reinstall HEN.

To check the PS3 HD I had to remove it from PS3 and install it in my PC.

Once installed in PC I downloaded and installed http://hddscan.com/

(example picture of user interface)

I wanted to run:

Storage device tests:

• Verification in linear mode – helps to determine if your drive needs data rescue, has recoverable errors or in its perfect shape.
• Reading in linear mode – simpler, but faster disk check.
• Erasing in linear mode.
• Reading in Butterfly mode (synthetic random read).

S.M.A.R.T.: (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a monitoring system included in computer hard disk drives, to check for errors.

• Reading and analyzing SMART parameters from ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire HDD.
• SMART tests running on ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire HDD.
• Temperature monitor for ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire/SCSI HDD.

After a few hours of running above tests everything passed, except I noticed the drive running temperature was 48oC, which is borderline too hot:

Hard Disk Temperature
Less than 25°C:	Too cold
25°C to 40°C:	Ideal
41°C to 50°C:	Acceptable
More than 50°C:	Too hot

from this I deduced that the HD needed more cooling, Sony designed the HD in a metal cage to try and absorb some of the heat generated from the rsx & cpu mounted just below the HD, which run in the 60+ oC range on my super slim 4003. Infact the PS3 was designed to run hot, but alas, Sony didnt get the HD's designed to run hot.
So what I did, I removed HD cover

and drilled some small holes in it just at HD bracket area, because I noticed the internal cooling fan blow air around this area.
Now I'm currently looking for a small air vent grille to fit in this area like below picture, if anyone knows where I can get one, that will fit on the HD case cover?

I then ordered from ebay this cooling fan and have my PS3 sitting on it: https://bit.ly/2Lt3OJx

The idea behind all this is that i will get better cooling into and around my PS3, that can also be expelled out through HD cover and through internal PSU giving better air through put.

Next i installed AOMEI Partition Assistant om my PC

https://www.disk-partition.com/

I installed this because, from years of experience I have found that hard discs often need to be fully formatted, after so many quick formats and errors.

Once I'd completed all this, I reinserted HD into PS3, installed OFW 4.84 and then HFW twice and then HEN 2.31 http://**ps3xploit.com >Domain no L... (ps3xploit.me =new)/hen/installer/index.html

I now have a PS3 xmb which is free of errors, and a HD and system that is running more efficiently and cooler. But one of the other reason I tackled this was because it was recommend that my HD might be faulty, causing all the errors, alas, my HD is fine, but maybe the higher temperature running was causing problems causing data not to written or read correctly.
I'm gonna run the system for another 5 days, and remove the HD and check again via HDscan what operating temperature it has reached, I also want to mount an air grille as per above picture, I'll make one if I have to, reason behind it being the air blown up from the new cooling fan system can enter into the HD via the grille giving my ps3 better cooling.

Another reason Im doing this, is because webMAN mod that has these wonderful cooling fan systems in place causes my PS3 to black screen.

So now with latest HEN 2.3.1, I just have multiMAN/HEN tool box and ps2 launcher rubug and dont have any black screen problems, or crazy errors.

For now it could be the increased cooling capacity and full format of and check of hard disc that is keeping my system stable.

Regards

Steve

 

[Berion]

I installed this because, from years of experience I have found that hard discs often need to be fully formatted, after so many quick formats and errors.

Waste of time. :P For PS3 everything which is not encrypted and made by her partitioning scheme is like all zeroes.

After a few hours of running above tests everything passed, except I noticed the drive running temperature was 48oC, which is borderline too hot:

Indeed, too hot but You should have in mind that this is also after long stress.

 

[SteveGW]

Waste of time. :P For PS3 everything which is not her encrypted, partitioning scheme is like all zeroes.



Indeed, too hot but You should have in mind that this is also after long stress.

re: full format: A full format does not just clean the partition table data, it also checks every sector on the disk surface for corrupted ones. This is primarily why it takes so much longer to perform then a quick format. A quick format just rewrites the partition tables.
Definitely not a waste of time.

re: temperature, the temperature from the SMART device test is over the life time of the drive.. but which part of its life time timeline is not available. But I'll not take no chances...

 

[Berion]

PS3 doesn't understand MBR or GPT on internal HDD, so all sectors excluded during full format will not be excluded on PS3 because this will be overwrite by PS3 custom (?) partition table... You need force HDD firmware to remap them and this is possible on lower level than any kind of formatting did by any of the OS. That's why what You have done was definitely waste of time and free electrons. ^^"

Oh, and primly why it takes longer is fact that all sectors are overwriting by zeroes, when qiuck format overwrite only file system tables.

Parram C2 showing current noted temperature in short test (because S.M.A.R.T have three kind of tests).


BTW: I appreciate that You put a lot of time to Your post (txt formatting, pictures etc.).

 

[x64]

@SteveGW Its hard to find an air vent small enough to fit on the hdd bay cover. You could dremel a small rectangle or drill a hole array and then hot glue a piece of dust mesh to block out dust and smaller bugs.

PC case dust mesh

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[SteveGW]

PS3 doesn't understand MBR or GPT on internal HDD, so all sectors excluded during full format will not be excluded on PS3 because this will be overwrite by PS3 custom (?) partition table... You need force HDD firmware to remap them and this is possible on lower level than any kind of formatting did by any of the OS. That's why what You have done was definitely waste of time and free electrons. ^^"

Oh, and primly why it takes longer is fact that all sectors are overwriting by zeroes, when qiuck format overwrite only file system tables.

Parram C2 showing current noted temperature in short test (because S.M.A.R.T have three kind of tests).


BTW: I appreciate that You put a lot of time to Your post (txt formatting, pictures etc.).

I'm not creating a MBR for an OS, I'm formatting the entire HD and creating a partition table/index. I am creating one partition and deleting everything, with out running military grade logarithms to permanently delete the drive data. A quick format only deletes the MBR created by an OS, leaving all the data intact on the primary partition. As I was told I was suffering from possible corrupted data, it was necessary to perform this task so that the PS3 was not writing over corrupt data on the drive, but writting over a 0.
Thats why this method is called "wipe and reload"

When using a drive in a windows system, the windows OS creates the MBR in a partion on the HD.
And obviously the Sony PS3 system does the same for its OS, you say the PS3 dosent understand GPT, of course it does, the drive needs to be formatted FAT32, even FAT32 contains a partition table or GPT.
It is definitely not a waste of time.
And as for free electrons, Im not interest in removing any from an atom, Im only interested in deleting a disk with alleged corrupt data.

So can you explain to us your method for wiping corrupted data from an HD? from the industry specific method of formatting?

This technique of formatting is especially useful if the drive has been corrupted or one has to completely erase the contents and install a new operating system along with fresh files for new data. It comes in handy when the system itself is unable to format the disk owing to bad partitioning, virus, corrupt file or unauthorized access. Since each bit has to be rewritten with a zero, it will take a long time to format the disk or drive depending on its size and speed.

Reformatting often carries the implication that the operating system and all other software will be reinstalled after the format is complete. Rather than fixing an installation suffering from malfunction or security compromise, it may be necessary to simply reformat everything and start from scratch. Various colloquialisms exist for this process, such as "wipe and reload", "nuke and pave", "reimage", etc.

 

[Berion]

I'm not creating a MBR for an OS, I'm formatting the entire HD and creating a partition table/index

Partition table is i.e MBR or GPT. There are plenty of formats of partition tables. Those two are just most popular because Windows, Linux, macOS and few other RT OSes adopt them.

I am creating one partition and deleting everything, with out running military grade logarithms to permanently delete the drive data. A quick format only deletes the MBR created by an OS, leaving all the data intact on the primary partition. As I was told I was suffering from possible corrupted data, it was necessary to perform this task so that the PS3 was not writing over corrupt data on the drive, but writting over a 0.
Thats why this method is called "wipe and reload"

1. Any partition table and/or any file system will be wipe out as PS3 using her own.
2. Military grade logarithms? What? And to do what? You probably misleading with algorithms... which their purpose is preventing restoring overwriting data, because of not enough head precision during writing (but this was at least truth for ancient HDDs, today magnetic fields are to tight packed to be possible to create magnetic map of entire plate(s) and get something from it after years of data analysis - if ever this was proven by experiments...). This is completely out of topic.

When using a drive in a windows system, the windows OS creates the MBR in a partion on the HD

No... Partition tables like i.e MBR contain sectors range for partitions, which are right after this table. Partitions aren't inside MBR.

And obviously the Sony PS3 system does the same for its OS, you say the PS3 dosent understand GPT, of course it does, the drive needs to be formatted FAT32, even FAT32 contains a partition table or GPT.

Obviously You have no idea what are You talking about... You constantly misleading partition table with file systems and their tables, misleading internal and external mass storage device and other things, which makes Your posting sounds like random string generator. Slowdown cowboy and try rethinking all of this. ;p

So can you explain to us your method for wiping corrupted data from an HD? from the industry specific method of formatting?

It is not my method, it was developed since first HDD comes out (it was 40 or more years ago ). But I can explain to You how it works and how it is possible to do. In service area, inaccessible in any kind of software except firmware of this HDD, there are data with i.e disk geometry and disabled, broken sectors which are already exist on the medium (it is impossible to produce perfect disk so every defect must be disabled from use). This is testing and done in the factory of course. Modern firmwares using S.M.A.R.T system which constantly testing and monitoring various of parrams. One of them are unstable sectors which are monitoring since first detection. When the be problematic to much times, they are flagged as bad sectors, and firmware remapping them automatically from 64 or more backup unused but good sectors. You cannot interfere with that by ordinary ATA commands (at least I don't know any which can, including i.e Victoria HDD) and You can do nothing if You exceed limit of backup sectors. It is often when disk start remapping, it is good sign for the user to prepare migration as corruption could started growing fast (but it is not a rule).

On upper level like OS and his apps, we can manually exclude some sectors from been used. Testing methods are various depends of programmers imagination but what is important here PS3 doesn't give a sh*t about anything on this HDD. She create his own partition table, with her own partitions (UFS2, FAT16, FAT32, few raw etc.) and encrypt every single sector. If she doesn't find her partition table, she ask for formatting. That's why any high level operation on disk is pointless.

 

[Cypher_CG89]

When using a drive in a windows system, the windows OS creates the MBR in a partion on the HD.

Really...? Windows doesn't do a thing to an HDD untill you tell it to, and I think you'll find most HDDs now are using GTP on Windows instead of MBR as this was developed in 1984 and is well out-dated now.

you say the PS3 dosent understand GPT, of course it does, the drive needs to be formatted FAT32, even FAT32 contains a partition table or GPT.

What the hell is this tripe...... PS3's will not use GPT HDDs... to prove it why don't you format one to FAT32 GPT and use it as an external on your PS3.... it will not show up on the XMB as the PS3 does not recognise the GPT partition table.

You need to learn the difference between MBR and GPT.... FAT32 can be MBR or GPT.....Seriously go look on a Wiki page before typing crap.