Well, as far as I've been able to determine, my PS3 bit the dust over the weekend. It's a 60 Gb model that I got in Feb '07 - so out of warranty. First I'll describe what happened (with the slim hope that someone's seen something similar and can suggest a fix other than what I've tried), but I'm also interested in what I might be able to do to extract the gamesaves that are on there.
This is what happened. My wife had been listening to a CD in the PS3, and I guess it had been on pause for a few hours while we were watching TV. Then, we were going to watch a movie - so flipped the TV's input to HDMI. I was in the other room, and she says 'look it's the Matrix'. I look at the TV and the display is frozen in what appears to be a random grid of black and green blocks. Well, I just figure it's locked up (my son had said it had locked up a couple of times recently while he was playing Civilization). So, I hold the power button down until it powers off, and then press it again to turn it back on ... and nothing happens. The green light comes on like it's going to power up but no sound and no video (just a blue screen on my TV like when there's no input).
Not knowing what the problem and hoping it would resolve itself, I didn't try much more other than holding down the power button when it was off (as described in various google searches as resetting the video to the detected connection) until the next day. Then yesterday, I tried HDMI, component, and composite connections to no avail. Here's how the PS3 behaves: green light comes on, the fan starts up and then turns off almost immediately, the green light stays on, I can insert and eject discs but cannot get any output. The controllers if plugged in will have all lights flashing, but do not seem to recognize the PS3 - no port is assigned.
I did call Sony, and they weren't able to tell me much. Other than made me follow the same troubleshooting procedure I had already tried. They said I could mail it in and get it fixed for $150, which I'm not really excited to do.
I'm leaning towards buying a new unit, as it won't be long until I go into PS3 game and blu-ray withdrawal. Anybody have some suggestions as to ways I might be able to get the data off of my PS3?? unfortunately, it's probably been 6 months or more since I backed it up. I asked the tech from Sony, but he was fairly clueless. (First he told me, 'yeah sure you can back it up.. just go into settings from the xmb.' So I had to remind him of the first 20 minutes of our conversation and how it doesn't boot up). I asked him if I were to buy a new ps3, take my old hard drive out and put it in the new one, if I could then back it up. He said that as soon as I took out the hard drive it would be erased. I think this is wrong, but I suppose it is possible when I put it in the new one it might get re-formatted.
Another option then would be to put the old drive into an enclosure and then restore this. Would this work?
Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I'm looking to see if anyone has had a similar failure, and if there's any way to get my save data after failure. Thanks in advance.
This is what happened. My wife had been listening to a CD in the PS3, and I guess it had been on pause for a few hours while we were watching TV. Then, we were going to watch a movie - so flipped the TV's input to HDMI. I was in the other room, and she says 'look it's the Matrix'. I look at the TV and the display is frozen in what appears to be a random grid of black and green blocks. Well, I just figure it's locked up (my son had said it had locked up a couple of times recently while he was playing Civilization). So, I hold the power button down until it powers off, and then press it again to turn it back on ... and nothing happens. The green light comes on like it's going to power up but no sound and no video (just a blue screen on my TV like when there's no input).
Not knowing what the problem and hoping it would resolve itself, I didn't try much more other than holding down the power button when it was off (as described in various google searches as resetting the video to the detected connection) until the next day. Then yesterday, I tried HDMI, component, and composite connections to no avail. Here's how the PS3 behaves: green light comes on, the fan starts up and then turns off almost immediately, the green light stays on, I can insert and eject discs but cannot get any output. The controllers if plugged in will have all lights flashing, but do not seem to recognize the PS3 - no port is assigned.
I did call Sony, and they weren't able to tell me much. Other than made me follow the same troubleshooting procedure I had already tried. They said I could mail it in and get it fixed for $150, which I'm not really excited to do.
I'm leaning towards buying a new unit, as it won't be long until I go into PS3 game and blu-ray withdrawal. Anybody have some suggestions as to ways I might be able to get the data off of my PS3?? unfortunately, it's probably been 6 months or more since I backed it up. I asked the tech from Sony, but he was fairly clueless. (First he told me, 'yeah sure you can back it up.. just go into settings from the xmb.' So I had to remind him of the first 20 minutes of our conversation and how it doesn't boot up). I asked him if I were to buy a new ps3, take my old hard drive out and put it in the new one, if I could then back it up. He said that as soon as I took out the hard drive it would be erased. I think this is wrong, but I suppose it is possible when I put it in the new one it might get re-formatted.
Another option then would be to put the old drive into an enclosure and then restore this. Would this work?
Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I'm looking to see if anyone has had a similar failure, and if there's any way to get my save data after failure. Thanks in advance.
