So, another AVSer and I swapped PS3. He wanted the 80G unit for SACD capabilities, I wanted the 40G unit for quieter operation. We each kept our own hard drives and sent the console to the other person. The plan was to keep our own hard drives, data, game saves, etc. Sounded good.

He received my unit today, put in his hard drive and booted up and the PS3 made him format the drive.

I should get his unit tomorrow. I want to be able to keep all the data and game saves on the drive. is this possible or is the PS3 going to make me format the drive?

:(

Nope, you have to format it.

Nope, you have to format it.

Say it ain't so. :( How distressing.

What about putting in a different HDD, formatting it then connecting the old drive to the USB. Any way to get the data off it then? Or to a PC or anything? If I had known (done more research and not been a dumbass) I would have backed up the data with the OS backup utility and kept the HDD with the original unit.

Nope, the contents of that HDD can only be accessed by the PS3 it was originally formatted on. And it would have to be connected to the internal HDD port, not through USB.

I'm not sure if the OS backup utility will even transfer between PS3s (it may).

What you should have done is copied your save games/music/videos/pictures from the internal drive to a USB drive before you removed it.

Nope, the contents of that HDD can only be accessed by the PS3 it was originally formatted on. And it would have to be connected to the internal HDD port, not through USB.

I'm not sure if the OS backup utility will even transfer between PS3s (it may).

What you should have done is copied your save games/music/videos/pictures from the internal drive to a USB drive before you removed it.

Big bummer. The DLC can be downloaded again. It's the game data which is going to be sorely missed. :( Oh well. Thanks for the info.