PS3 Ultimate userdata backup guide

GuilloteTesla said:
It won't work for PSN accounts nor save files. Those use act.dat and RIF files.

For local accounts, it may work as long as the user folders are present in the HDD (i.e. local user's "00000002" folder must exist).
Click to expand...
Thanks! So the only way to restore those saves is by resigning them with Apollo, right? Is that safe to use?
 
@Gansey You can write back xRegistry.sys on different console. After reboot, User will see BSOD but after another, everything will be normal, including all NP Account ID from that registry. It is the best way to do without need of resigning saves and trophies.

However, activation must be done on target console. The same with licenses importing from *.raf.
 
Berion said:
@Gansey You can write back xRegistry.sys on different console. After reboot, User will see BSOD but after another, everything will be normal, including all NP Account ID from that registry. It is the best way to do without need of resigning saves and trophies.

However, activation must be done on target console. The same with licenses importing from *.raf.
Click to expand...
Thanks! My PS3 arrived today and I was able to restore everything this way. Thankfully I didn't get any BSOD, rebuilding the database did the trick without any problems.
 
Is it possible to reinsert PSN messages?
After putting the files in, rebuilding database would only delete them, no?

At least I took pictures of funny messages to my friends before my HDD was formatted:confused:

EDIT: On same PS3, if I put new HDD and have only 1 dummy user, install HEN and Multiman, and then put xRegistry back and repaste all home folders and save files, will it work or must I create same amount of users?

Either way I also have a sys backup so that should restore users normally too

Should rebuild database be done first reboot after file transfer?
 
Last edited:
Hello, what about the exdata in dev_hdd0/exdata? do I need copy then too ? the guide said only dev_hdd0/home/<user>/exdata
 
It is wise to copy it too. There are non tied licenses (RAP) to any SEN account. Unofficial place and formats. Guide was created in times of Cobra 8.3 payload, not covering newer stuff (AFAIR that's the only thing new worth to backup).
 
I see, and I have another question.
With Apollo Save Tool, can I backup trophies, saves, and xregistry.sys instead of copying dev_hdd0/home? I saw it can back up trophies, saves, exdata, and even xregistry.sys, but I didn't see an option to back up the user itself, that's why I'm asking.
 
@vithor_VIL Whatever method you use for backup data is fine, as long it is all data you want. I don't remember if Apollo copying saves etc. for one user or all users. Doing that by hand, you can be 100% assured. Most of data on HDD is garbage, not needed to be backup. But if you want all, you can copy and restore all. In tutorial, I listed all worth data. Everything else is tmp, cache etc.

Normally, you wouldn't need to backup RAPs because having RIFs, NPAID and IDPS, you can decrypt them.
 
no-one ever did a script/app to do all this backup/restore thing,and to zip it, to eg. external usb-drive connected to ps3 ?
 
No one. I made PS3 Backuper script for PS3HDH but as the only one, wasn't well tested.

You can use Apollo Save Tool for backup/restoring saves/vmcs and trophies per account. Also for import/export licenses per account. And some PS2 disc images tasks.
 
Berion said:
No one. I made PS3 Backuper script for PS3HDH but as the only one, wasn't well tested.

You can use Apollo Save Tool for backup/restoring saves/vmcs and trophies per account. Also for import/export licenses per account. And some PS2 disc images tasks.
Click to expand...

I will just just wire up my PS3 (CFW)+PC together with ethernet cable, and transfer everything from PS3 to PC/vice versa, when needed. :)
(and zip it manually on PC,to save space..)
Thanks for the nice tutorial however, had not noticed it before. :)
 
You will not gain much from compression, especially Deflate (*.zip), because all data is already compressed and/or encrypted. I.e my trophies taking ~700MiB, compressed by LZMA in *.7z shrinking it to ~570MiB.
 
Berion said:
No one. I made PS3 Backuper script for PS3HDH but as the only one, wasn't well tested.

You can use Apollo Save Tool for backup/restoring saves/vmcs and trophies per account. Also for import/export licenses per account. And some PS2 disc images tasks.
Click to expand...

Care to consider releasing an app for PS3, which would do this backup/restore thing, eg. to/from external USB HDD, or wlan/lan ?
Would be great.

edit: wish i could code that much,i would start working on it myself,else. :(

Berion said:
You will not gain much from compression, especially Deflate (*.zip), because all data is already compressed and/or encrypted. I.e my trophies taking ~700MiB, compressed by LZMA in *.7z shrinking it to ~570MiB.
Click to expand...

7-zip atleast packs many games quite well..
eg. The Sims 3 iso-image 6.6GB --> 2.8GB, The Sims 3 Pets iso-image 6.3GB --> 4.7GB, Shaun White Skateboarding 5.4GB --> 3GB, Rapala Fishing Frenzy 2009 4.3GB --> 1.8GB, Duke Nukem Forever iso-image 4.9GB --> 2.6GB
 
Last edited by a moderator:
PSXFan said:
7-zip atleast packs many games quite well..
eg. The Sims 3 iso-image 6.6GB --> 2.8GB, The Sims 3 Pets iso-image 6.3GB --> 4.7GB, Shaun White Skateboarding 5.4GB --> 3GB, Rapala Fishing Frenzy 2009 4.3GB --> 1.8GB, Duke Nukem Forever iso-image 4.9GB --> 2.6GB
Click to expand...

There's also the .ECM format that strips the Error Correction/Detection Codes data for better compression before zipping, you should try it on your results for comparison.
https://github.com/37712/ECM-Tools

American releases tend to zip better than European or Australian releases because they don't contain the extra audio & video files for the multi-5 languages outside of English, you can rip or zero pad them for even better compression as long as you don't break the lba.

Duke Nukem Forever example
249298944 byte / 237.75 MB difference.
http://redump.org/disc/31157/
http://redump.org/disc/28495/
 
Last edited:
Disc images have often "empty islands" and compressing/encrypting not much data if any at all, except executable. They can be compressed fine.

Never use ECM. It is ancient garbage, which literally breaking games. All modern emulators for all consoles which using disc images, supporting *.chd. It using LZMA2 for data and FLAC for CDDA.
 
How is it breaking games?,
I thought it was just like a difference patch or xdelta, ppf etc to restore the original data, don't the checksums match the original images?
You could say the same thing for the widescreen patches etc in ManaGunZ that patch the elf iso directly instead of memory.
 
Many PSX games using wrong ECC as security measure, and games with XA/STR put there media header instead ECC. In other cases, you never know if developer not put there anything important. Plus, you don't know if burning app (if you want burn image back) will regenerate properly all ECCs. And of course you will be unable to validate image after striping it from ECC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Back
Top