well my ps3 died today

Ah_Pook

sucks right, YLOD in full effect. wondering if anyone else here has had this happen, and if so i have questions for you. can i remove my HDD and just send the system to them for repair/replacement and then get my game saves and whatnot off my old HDD when i get the system back? i really dont want to send them my HDD with my payment info and etc saved on there, and i cant get to the xmb to delete anything. will they send me back another 60 gig BC system if they send me a different one? and generally how long is the turnaround for this kind of thing?

pretty bummed, but i guess thems the breaks with consoles these days.

Rakai

Ah_Pook wrote: »

sucks right, YLOD in full effect. wondering if anyone else here has had this happen, and if so i have questions for you. can i remove my HDD and just send the system to them for repair/replacement and then get my game saves and whatnot off my old HDD when i get the system back? i really dont want to send them my HDD with my payment info and etc saved on there, and i cant get to the xmb to delete anything. will they send me back another 60 gig BC system if they send me a different one? and generally how long is the turnaround for this kind of thing?

pretty bummed, but i guess thems the breaks with consoles these days.

A BC PS3 went down? Ouch. Hopefully it's repairable since they can't replace those. I'm always worried about mine biting the dust.

-Loki-

There's an option in account management to delete billing information.

edit - YLOD is most common on BC PS3's isn't it? Since they are running older chipsets which are more prone to overheating, thus causing a YLOD, than newer, more efficient chipsets.

Reznik

Remember that if they send you a new/different system, the old HDD will get reformatted if you try to put it in the new console. I think they'll be cool with you sending in a HDD-less system though.

Turnaround is probably different depending on where you live. My friend's took a couple weeks but we're in nowheresville, Canada.

Ah_Pook

-Loki- wrote: »

There's an option in account management to delete billing information.

theres also an option to backup save games and plenty of other wonderful options that dont really mean anything if your system is dead.

Chance

Ouch, man. Sorry for your loss.

-Loki-

Ah_Pook wrote: »

-Loki- wrote: »

There's an option in account management to delete billing information.

theres also an option to backup save games and plenty of other wonderful options that dont really mean anything if your system is dead.

Yeah, 'dead system' didn't really sink in when I posted that.

Rakai

Unfortunately it doesn't look like there's an Xport type program for the PS3.

-Loki-

Can't you just connect the HDD via USB to a PC? (arrrgh attack of the acronyms)

Rakai

-Loki- wrote: »

Can't you just connect the HDD via USB to a PC? (arrrgh attack of the acronyms)

It uses a unique file system which Windows/OSX won't recognize. Since the Xbox doesn't allow copying files to memory sticks/USB HDDs etc. like the PS3 does, Xport was created to allow PC's to read the Xbox file structure. Googling around it seems no comparable program was created for the PS3 since it was largely unnecessary except in extreme circumstances (such as a PS3 breaking with no backups).

Ah_Pook

no theyre formatted differently, pcs cant read them. i guess im just SOL on that. nothing irreplaceable being lost i guess, but i'll probably sell off RE5 and a couple other games because i know theres no way i'll play back through to unlock everything again.

edit: damn, sf4 is gonna suck dicks too now that im thinking about it. i guess the moral of the story is back stuff up all you ps3 users.

Radikal_Dreamer

This happened to my first PS3. The good thing was that Sony sent it back pretty damned quickly. The bad things were that A) I didn't have my receipt and had to wait a month for it from fucking target.... and like you I lost all my saves. Now I'm pretty paranoid and make a backup save onto my PSP's stick on every game I'm playing every night.

-Loki-

Hmm. I have a spare 1gb SD Pro lying around. Maybe it would be worth it to occasionally back up my saved data to that through my PSP.

Ah_Pook

couldnt hurt, especially if you have saves laying around for games that you beat the hell out of and wouldnt want to go back through unlocking everything etc. the only trick is some games wont let you copy the saves.

-Loki-

Well, Burnout Paradise fits that. I really don't want to do that a third time.

UnbreakableVow

Were there any signs leading up to your YLOD? Or is it just something that happened when you turned it on one day?

Ah_Pook

it was 100% absolutely fine. ive never had any kinds of problems with it for the entire time ive had it (a year and a half about). i was in the middle of a match of blazblue and it just powered off and wouldnt turn back on. the power light flashes yellow and then blinks red (this is called the yellow light of death or YLOD i guess, ive seen a lot of other people complaining about it online now that i started looking) and the system wont even attempt to boot up. it wasnt running hot or loud or doing anything out of the ordinary at all immediately prior to completely (and terminally) shitting out.

Millbuddah

Was your ps3 still under warranty or are they charging you? I ask because my 60gb also crapped out recently. XMB and whatnot still works, but the drive refuses to read any games and I'm out of the warranty period.

TheMorningStar

This is funny. My BC 80gb ps3 that my girlfriend got me xmas 2007 took a shit last night too. Actually just the bluray drive, which really sucks. I just got out of the hospital after having major abdominal surgery, and was looking forward to watching my copy of Watclhmen my mom picked up for me on bluray and it froze before reaching the menu. I restarted the thing, and now it doesnt read blurays, dvda, or cds.


And since it's out of warranty, sony wants 149 to try and fix it. And since I've been very ill lately and havent worked I dont have any extra money to spare right now. So Im at home all day pissing out a tube, shitting in a bag through a hole in my stomach, drugged out and tired staring at a stack of blurays I can't watch.

When it rains, it pours.

Ashcroft

Couldn't you keep the HDD, then put a different HDD in the PS3 when you get it back, and connect the old one to the PS3 by USB with an enclosure, and transfer the saves across like that?

Ah_Pook

my understanding is thus: external HDDs have to be formatted fat32 to work with the ps3. an encrypted ps3 HDD is only readable internally in the ps3 that its linked to. if you want to use it in a different ps3 you have to reformat it in that ps3 for it to work. if you want to use it in an external enclosure you have to format it to fat32 and then the ps3 will recognize it as an external storage device.

so basically theres no way to do anything with the data on there if you dont have your original ps3 in working condition.

ElKaboom

TheMorningStar wrote: »

This is funny. My BC 80gb ps3 that my girlfriend got me xmas 2007 took a shit last night too. Actually just the bluray drive, which really sucks. I just got out of the hospital after having major abdominal surgery, and was looking forward to watching my copy of Watclhmen my mom picked up for me on bluray and it froze before reaching the menu. I restarted the thing, and now it doesnt read blurays, dvda, or cds.


And since it's out of warranty, sony wants 149 to try and fix it. And since I've been very ill lately and havent worked I dont have any extra money to spare right now. So Im at home all day pissing out a tube, shitting in a bag through a hole in my stomach, drugged out and tired staring at a stack of blurays I can't watch.

When it rains, it pours.

You sir...
Need a hug.

Wren

ElKaboom wrote: »

TheMorningStar wrote: »

This is funny. My BC 80gb ps3 that my girlfriend got me xmas 2007 took a shit last night too. Actually just the bluray drive, which really sucks. I just got out of the hospital after having major abdominal surgery, and was looking forward to watching my copy of Watclhmen my mom picked up for me on bluray and it froze before reaching the menu. I restarted the thing, and now it doesnt read blurays, dvda, or cds.


And since it's out of warranty, sony wants 149 to try and fix it. And since I've been very ill lately and havent worked I dont have any extra money to spare right now. So Im at home all day pissing out a tube, shitting in a bag through a hole in my stomach, drugged out and tired staring at a stack of blurays I can't watch.

When it rains, it pours.

You sir...
Need a hug.

yeaahh.. I'm not the one getting close to him to do it though

TheMorningStar

Wren wrote: »

ElKaboom wrote: »

TheMorningStar wrote: »

This is funny. My BC 80gb ps3 that my girlfriend got me xmas 2007 took a shit last night too. Actually just the bluray drive, which really sucks. I just got out of the hospital after having major abdominal surgery, and was looking forward to watching my copy of Watclhmen my mom picked up for me on bluray and it froze before reaching the menu. I restarted the thing, and now it doesnt read blurays, dvda, or cds.


And since it's out of warranty, sony wants 149 to try and fix it. And since I've been very ill lately and havent worked I dont have any extra money to spare right now. So Im at home all day pissing out a tube, shitting in a bag through a hole in my stomach, drugged out and tired staring at a stack of blurays I can't watch.

When it rains, it pours.

You sir...
Need a hug.

yeaahh.. I'm not the one getting close to him to do it though

haha, thank you sir, this really made me laugh.

UnbreakableVow

Millbuddah wrote: »

Was your ps3 still under warranty or are they charging you? I ask because my 60gb also crapped out recently. XMB and whatnot still works, but the drive refuses to read any games and I'm out of the warranty period.

If you haven't done it yet (and if anyone's disc drive craps out but you can still access the XMB), before you send it in, go to Account Management and deactivate your system. This will leave you with a full five PS3s to download things on (assuming you haven't shared to other PS3s yet).

Mr Pink

TheMorningStar wrote: »

This is funny. My BC 80gb ps3 that my girlfriend got me xmas 2007 took a shit last night too. Actually just the bluray drive, which really sucks. I just got out of the hospital after having major abdominal surgery, and was looking forward to watching my copy of Watclhmen my mom picked up for me on bluray and it froze before reaching the menu. I restarted the thing, and now it doesnt read blurays, dvda, or cds.


And since it's out of warranty, sony wants 149 to try and fix it. And since I've been very ill lately and havent worked I dont have any extra money to spare right now. So Im at home all day pissing out a tube, shitting in a bag through a hole in my stomach, drugged out and tired staring at a stack of blurays I can't watch.

When it rains, it pours.

I think you need this.

earthwormadam

If it makes you guys feel any better, you aren't the only ones.

Ha my blu ray drive bricked a long time ago, but I've been playing downloadable games on it until I feel like sending it in.

So some of my save files let me copy them, so I'm guessing I can save those onto my jump drive. Does that mean the ones that don't allow me to do that are gonna be gone? Like SF4? Shit, I'm really not looking forward to unlocking everything in that game agian. Fuck you Seth, fuck you to hell.

I was thinking about getting Battlefield but will my downloaded games be carried over to my fixed system. I didn't want to buy anymore games unless I knew for sure.

What about trophies? I'm assuming those will be gone too...

UnbreakableVow

Your Trophies are tied to your account, not your system. Get a new system, put in your old e-mail and password, and you have your Trophies again.

Downloadable games, you're allowed to download to a total of five PS3s. You're currently using one of the five. If you want to clear this off the record so that you have five PS3s to download your games to again, go to Account Management > System Activation > Deactivate. Then your slate will be clean.

Reznik

There's a backup feature in the XMB that backs up everything on your harddrive, so you don't have to worry about non-transferrable saves and the like. Use that instead of trying to copy your saves.

earthwormadam

Oh hey that is good to know, I didn't want to lose my precious virtual trophies! And now I can go ahead and get Battlefeild without wondering if I just wasted 15 buckeroos.

I'll try that backup feature too if I can figure out how to do it.

Skexis

Did a little googling, and there's some quickfixes you can try if you have the patience. It's probably going to mean a reformat, but at least if it works your system isn't bricked.

Oh no!! Yellow Light Of Death!!

This fix is not gauranteed to work, as it only deals with Hard Drive issues. I saw a poster who did this to fix his PS3 when he got the YLOD, and did some research to find out why this would work before I posted this fix. I'll explain why this could work, after I tell you how to do the fix.

Since your PS3 is going to get formatted anyway, you might as well try this:



1. Pull out your hard drive from your PS3
2. Connect the hard drive to your PC
3. Do a FULL format, not a quick one (a quick format just formats the boot section and root directory of the hard drive, and not the data on the hard drive. We want the hard drive blanked out). Make sure to do it in FAT32 (if you can). To format the HDD you'll need to go to Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management. This has an older windows feel to it, but on the left hand side you'll see Storage, under that (you may have to click and expand it) you'll see Disk Management. Click on that, in the middle window will come up the hard drives. You should see it there (It'll likely have a series of letters, followed by numbers). You may not be able to format it into FAT32 format with it being such a large disk drive (windows doesn't like giving you any non-MS file format for large disks). But doing a NTFS format should work. There are a few programs that will allow you to format it into FAT32 if you can't with that program.
4. Put the hard drive back in the PS3 (be ready with a USB thumbdrive with the system software on it, follow this link to learn how to set it up).
5. Hopefully, your PS3 will boot up, and prompt you to install the software on to the hard drive
6. Time to download all your stuff again :smileyvery-happy: (hoepfully you haven't purchased any movies, as you can't redownload them). Then, back to gaming



The reason this could work is actually pretty simple. If a part of the boot sector/root directory (the sections on the hard drive that tell the PS3 how to start up, and where things are on the hard drive) were corrupted so that the PS3 couldn't properly boot up, or couldn't find what it needed on the hard drive, it could give off a "hardware malfunction" error, aka Yellow Light (of Death). By formating the hard drive, you remove that bad code on the hard drive, and start over. The PS3 doesn't detect any hardware error (cause it's gone) and starts over.


Two alternate ways to see if it's the hardrive:

1. If you have upgraded your hard drive (especially if it's been very recent) try putting in the hard drive that came with your PS3 (hopefully you didn't toss it). If the PS3 boots up, then the issue is with the upgraded hard drive. New electronics sometimes have bugs that basic testing can't find, sometimes we have to find that out by plugging them in, I've built/rebuilt/upgraded many computers, and I've had to exchange parts on more than one occasion. Sometimes they are defective. If this is the case with your hard drive, and you are within the exchange or warranty period, take that bad boy in and get it replaced! If you figure "I'm within the warranty period, I can just send it in to Sony!" and you take out your hard drive, put in the old one (and don't test it), and send it in to them. They'll send you a nice refurbished system (or you may get yours back, as they may find nothing wrong), only to put in your upgraded hard drive and have the issue all over again, you'll be cursing Sony (likely on these forums) for THEM getting it wrong. If you don't even bother taking out the upgraded hard drive, and just send in your system with it in, they'll take it out, and toss it (or take it home if they can fix it), and no, they won't replace it with an equivalent. They'll replace it with a stock hard drive, meant for that model (or you may get a refurb, and they'll send your baby off to someone else when they send in their system).
2. If you have a spare hard drive that will fit your PS3 (see the first FAQ for more info) you could put it in the PS3 (it should format it for you, but you might as well put it in FAT32 first, or at least make sure nothing is on it). If it boots up and asks for system software, then you have a hard drive issue, use the fix above. Another user I spoke to had purchased a hard drive, and it crashed on him, giving him the YLOD (sorry, didn't put 2 + 2 together then). He put in his original PS3 HDD, and voila! YLOD was gone.

I hope this helps some of you YLOD sufferers. If this doesn't fix your issue however, you could have a power supply (wish sony had but that in a brick outside of the unit, easier to replace) or other problem with your hardware. It's time to contact Sony.

Original

Spoit

Reznik wrote: »

There's a backup feature in the XMB that backs up everything on your harddrive, so you don't have to worry about non-transferrable saves and the like. Use that instead of trying to copy your saves.

I think that's only for using it again on the same system, if you copy the non-transferable saves and plug the harddrive into a different PS3, it won't read them. It's supposed to be for upgrading your hard drive.

I remember because I was really annoyed when my BD died last year, and I could transfer over everything but Rock Band.

joshua1

since this is sorta related.

I am thinking about getting GHero or RBand. I also wish to download songs of the store. If I do so on a PS3 that is not mine, but with my store account, can I then later download them to *my* PS3?

I would normally go straight to mine, but the peripherals don't fit in the bedroom and the PS3 in the living room is not mine.

earthwormadam

So what if it is the same system, just repaired? Or is it basically considered a new system once it is repaired?

Either way it's not a big deal, but I'd love not to have to redo a bunch of shit...

UnbreakableVow

joshua1 wrote: »

since this is sorta related.

I am thinking about getting GHero or RBand. I also wish to download songs of the store. If I do so on a PS3 that is not mine, but with my store account, can I then later download them to *my* PS3?

I would normally go straight to mine, but the peripherals don't fit in the bedroom and the PS3 in the living room is not mine.

Yes.

Not only that, but if you wish to play Rock Band with that person, you can keep the songs on both PS3s. You're technically buying the songs, and if you check the Terms of Service when you buy anything on PSN, you have the right to put it on five PS3s, which gives you the ability to share games and downloadable content (with the exception of a few large-sized games, you can also play any games or DLC on your system under any profile name).

CarbonFire

Sorry to hear that Ah_Pook, hope Sony takes care of yah!

Was this one of the 60GB PS3s? or the Newer 80GB with Software BC?

Kysenna

Ah_Pook wrote: »

can i remove my HDD and just send the system to them for repair/replacement and then get my game saves and whatnot off my old HDD when i get the system back?

I had to send my PS3 in for repair a few weeks ago, too. They basically send you an instruction sheet that tells you how to backup your HD files onto an external drive, but since I don't have one, it was useless to me. (And since you can't get your system to power on, it'll be useless to you.) When I got the system back, the drive was completely wiped.

Ah_Pook wrote: »

will they send me back another 60 gig BC system if they send me a different one?

Mine was a 20 gig, and I'm almost positive the console I got back was a different 20 gig. I haven't bothered to check the serial number, but the casing doesn't seem to have as many scratches as when I sent it in (I bought it refurbished, so it had some cosmetic damage.) So whether they replace it or not, you should get back what you send in.

Ah_Pook wrote: »

how long is the turnaround for this kind of thing?

For me, from start to finish, it was about three and a half weeks. You write to them and explain the problem, then they send you a box to ship the PS3 in, then you sit and wait while it comes back. It was a kinda slow, but painless process.

ChewyWaffles

Wait, so what's the 100% sure way to get your saves off your PS3 so that in case of disaster (and a new PS3) you can still use them. Is there a way? It looks to me as though there isn't, which is positively dumb.

Ah_Pook

a lot of save files you can just copy to a thumb drive or to any external storage and it will be 100% fine. the only trouble is that some save files are copy protected, and for those i dont really know a good solution. ive heard the backup utility will copy them, but ive heard it doesnt work right or doesnt work at all other places. i havent tried it personally.

Malechai

FYI: the back up tool only covers any video music and ps3 saves. For some reason it fails to get any virtual memory card info. So for people out there with BC ps3's that they are needing to send in make sure to manualy save any old save files you don't want to lose.

cdneger

As far as I know they do still make the 60GB version in very small numbers to replace dead ones. I can't back this up with a source though, it's something I recall reading somewhere.