Transferring PS3 hdd data from dead system?

[MountainMotor]

I recently had my PS3 die so I went and purchased a new one and I'm trying to get my game save files from my old hdd to my new one. I called Sony and they said that there's no way of transferring the information from a dead system. Just wondering if anyone knows of a way that I can transfer the info, like transferring it to my pc hdd, jump drive, etc.? I just don't want to lose all of the game saves that I've been working on for years. Thanks

[vskid]

You could just put the hard drive from the old system into the new one for a temporary fix (or permanent if the HDDs are the same size or if you're fine with a lower capacity drive).

[MountainMotor]

The only way I can drop the old drive into the new system is if I format the drive and then I'm going to lose everything.

[vskid]

Are you sure? I'm not very familiar with the PS3, so I don't know.

[MountainMotor]

Yea, I'm sure. I've tried connecting it to my pc motherboard and I can get power to it but it won't detect that anything's connected.

[bicostp]

You sure it doesn't recognize it at all, or just the OS doesn't recognize the PS3 file system? (If it shows up in the BIOS but not in Windows, that's the problem.)

[jdmlight]

Try this:
http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/ ... -p/9851208

[MountainMotor]

The PS3 recognizes it but it just says that I have to format it before it useable. The pc doesn't even recognize it. Thanks for the link but it just talks about how to transfer over data from one system to the other by Ethernet but I only have one system and a separate hdd.

[vskid]

Do you happen to know someone with a PS3 that is the same model as your old one? Then you could use theirs to swap the data over. Other than that, you might be screwed.

[MountainMotor]

It doesn't matter if it's the same model because as soon as you put the hdd into a different system you have to reformat it. I was just trying to figure out if I could possibly extract the software to my pc or jump drive and then transfer it back to the new PS3.

[ChaosAlchemyst]

Here's My two cents:
LINUX!!
Seeing as how linux is not blocked against anything in particular (like windows is). It could potentially open up that HDD for you and you could recover your saves from it. Then, move them to a usb and onto the new machine.
(you could use something like this: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to boot linux off a usb drive and open the HDD through that.

[bicostp]

If the drive is encrypted there's nothing you can do about it no matter what OS you're running. (And why should Microsoft license Sony's drive encryption? The only reason Linux can get away with skirting IP laws is because everything is half-ass reverse-engineered then given away to a very niche market.)

From what I've found on Google, it seems like PS3 save files are encrypted and copying them around outside the Sony backup utility's environment probably won't work.