PS3 hard drive corrupted, ideas?

[jaw04005]

So, I was playing Pixeljunk Monsters this weekend and my PS3 froze. After waiting 40 minutes for it it unfreeze, I eventually had to turn off the PS3 using the power switch on the back.

Upon waiting a few hours (the PS3 was unusually warm), I turned it back on and was greeted with the dreaded "Your hard drive needs to be repaired." screen.

After going that process, the PS3 rebooted and displays the repair error message again.

I highly doubt this drive is dead. However, since it's formatted in EXT 3—I can't do any sort of diagnostic work in Mac OS X.

I thought about putting it in an enclosure and running SpinRite or something of that nature on it. It's a Seagate.

Any ideas? I really don't want to lose my saved game data.

 

[risc]

Unless you've backed up your drive recently I'm going to say you've lost your data. If you feel the need to try and retrieve your data go for it.

As for repairing the drive I've heard of people removing the drive, chucking it in a USB caddy, formatting it on a PC/Mac, chucking it back in the PS3, it formats back to the PS3 format and all is good.

 

[MarsUltor]

If you have to reformat, I would recommend just replacing the old drive with a new bigger one... no harm in extra hard drive space...

although I think it may void the warranty (if still on warranty)

 

[e²Studios]

If you have to reformat, I would recommend just replacing the old drive with a new bigger one... no harm in extra hard drive space...

although I think it may void the warranty (if still on warranty)

Swapping out the HD will not void your warranty. Sony made the PS3 hard drive user replaceable for a reason

Sony will not obviously cover the new HD under warranty, but most HDs will have their own warranty. So much easier and cheaper than other consoles...

Ed