EDITORIAL
28
Jul
14
Sony, Other

Backing Up Your PS3 Data or "Why I Should Have Gone to Comic-Con"

RSS by Chris "Bearded Gamer" Arnone on 28 July 2010, 3312 views
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Last week, I was on vacation from my full-time job. I had originally scheduled this week for vacation so I could fulfill a long-time dream of mine: San Diego Comic Con. Alas, this plan fell through a bit due to a lack of work or people to share a room with. An alternate plan was hatched: to take this opportunity to finish getting my newly purchased house in order and have a housewarming party on Saturday the 24th. 

Seemed like a perfectly good plan. I was mowing my yard on Tuesday when the Wave of Doom began its creep over my life. Nearly finished with my lawn, my mower gave up the ghost. I don't mean it needs to go into the shop, I mean bring in an obese woman and some sheet music; this little machine is done. 

Then came Thursday. Ironically - on my way to pay my car payment - a young driver rear-ended my 2008 Ford Focus. He was playing with his radio and didn't even touch his brakes. This pushed me into the Pontiac Fiero in front of me. The rear of my car is annihilated, the front end is a little damaged, and the airbag deployed. Fortunately, I'm okay. The accident was completely the kid's fault and I'm still waiting to hear the fate of the first brand-new car I ever purchased.

Thursday night. Some friends came over to console and commiserate with me over my destroyed vehicle. Shortly after they left, I fired up Red Dead Redemption on my PS3. After playing for a couple hours, the screen suddenly went black, my 2 1/2 years old PS3 beeped at me, then went to a perpetually blinking red light. It refused to start back up, showing a yellow light and then blinking red. After some internet research, I found this is tantamount the dreaded Yellow Light of Death.

Now, my PS3 is the center of my entertainment universe. I watch all my TV shows with it, watch DVDs, Blu Rays, and Netflix with it. Of course, I also play most of my game on it. It was an 80 GB (upgraded to 500 GB), 4 USB port, card reading, backwards compatible joy for me. Sending it back to Sony would leave me without a PS3 for at least three weeks, cost me at least $150, and likely yield up a refurbished replacement unit. Some scouring of the internet revealed that replacing my backwards compatible unit would cost me as much, if not more than buying a new unit.

The fix for YLoD is a tech-savvy, complex operation. I found two local shops, one of which turned out to be a scam and the other said they wouldn't fix YLoD because the problem keeps coming back. So, it was send in my PS3 to Sony or buy a new one. After weighing my options, I headed out to Best Buy with $50 in Reward Zone coupons and grabbed a 120 GB Slim.

However, my problems didn't end. Out of the box, I immediately grabbed a screwdriver and swapped out the 120 GB HDD for my 500 GB HDD I had installed on my old machine. To my dismay, the only option then given to me was to reformat the drive. To the internet I went again, only to find out PS3s encrypt the data on the drives to prevent ghost drives being created. The trade-off for easily and cheaply upgradeable HDDs is certain data doom if a PS3 dies. Sony built in a lovely Data Transfer capability, but it only works if both PS3s are functional.

On the bright side, I had a backup from June 9, when I upgraded my HDD. Still, I lost all my copy-protected saves like Assassin's Creed II and Street Fighter IV, all my save data from the last month and a half, all my game install data, and I spent several hours redownloading everything I had downloaded from PSN over the last 2 1/2 years.

The moral of this story? Back up your PS3 data regularly. That, and if you ever have the chance to go to San Diego Comic Con, you freakin' take it! The universe will strike you down otherwise.

Tags PS3, Anecdote, YLoD

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14 Comments

sirroman
sirroman (on 28 July 2010)

@binary solo: Sony offers the data recovery service... only in japan. And it costs a friggin' lot.

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All_Things_Sonic
All_Things_Sonic (on 28 July 2010)

yikes

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CaptainHavok
CaptainHavok (on 28 July 2010)

@AverageAsian: It does back up copy-protected saves, but you can't transfer them to a different PS3 with backup utility, only with the data transfer utility with two functional PS3s.

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binary solo
binary solo (on 28 July 2010)

I did a back-up to swap out my 80Gig for 160Gig about 8 months ago. I think it might be time to do another back-up. Why did you need to re-download all the stuff you DL'd from PSN for the last 2 1/2 years? I woulda thought your 9 June back-up would have all but the last month and a half of PSN downloads covered.

It's the one thing that is realy broken about the PS3 IMO that you can't simply take your current HDD from your busted PS3 (with the latest FW version) and plonk it into your new PS3. And it's not necessarily just YLOD that's gonna kill your PS3, what if your cat pees on it, or your toddler sibling / cousin takes a hammer to it? If you can't do a straight swap Sony should provide some sort of service to retrieve ALL your data from a non-functional PS3. Bugger doing back-ups on a weekly basis.

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Ssenkahdavic
Ssenkahdavic (on 28 July 2010)

Wow, that truly sucks and good to hear you are not injured.

I did get a laugh at your expense tho, so hopefully your grueling tale making others feel better cheers you up a bit :)

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ghost_of_fazz
ghost_of_fazz (on 28 July 2010)

Wow, karma can be such a bitch... Bad karma for not going to the comic-con, that's it.

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AverageAsian
AverageAsian (on 28 July 2010)

If you use the Backup Utility, it should backup copy-protected saves as well. Unless, of course, those saves were made post-June 9th, in which case, my condolences.

I think I'll go back up my PS3 now. =P

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CaptainHavok
CaptainHavok (on 28 July 2010)

@Zkuq: Yeah, that shop told me once you get YLoD, the processor is damaged and so even with a reflow, the problem will keep coming back. They got tired of fixing the same machines over and over again.

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Zkuq
Zkuq (on 28 July 2010)

My PS3 got YLoD, I fixed it, it got YLoD again, I fixed it again, I bought a PS3 Slim, transferred the data and while I'm not exactly happy, at least I got to keep my data. I practically fixed the old 60 GB model (PAL) only to keep my data.

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iWarMachine
iWarMachine (on 28 July 2010)

Ouch indeed.

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Xbbjf9s
Xbbjf9s (on 28 July 2010)

How did you not lose it? Sorry for your losses.

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pariz
pariz (on 28 July 2010)

I've never done a back up yet. I might regret it if I don't do it sooner than later.

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CaptainHavok
CaptainHavok (on 28 July 2010)

And those really are pictures of my house and my car.

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superchunk
superchunk (on 28 July 2010)

ouch. Well, the saying states that it comes in three's so you're done. :)

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