Directions on how to upgrade your PS3 Hard drive!

[BlackHitachi]

1. Purchase your external hard drive. Most hard drives will do. Some have incompatibilities. Western Digital is one that works fine.
2. Once you have your external hard drive is purchased, use the USB cord provided to connect it to a COMPUTER (not your Playstation 3).
   • IMPORTANT* Once your external hard drive is connected to your computer, go to START, CONTROL PANEL, ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS, COMPUTER MANAGEMENT, and select DISK MANAGER on the left hand side options. Select the external drive and read the "File System" type. If it says "NTFS", right click the disk and select "Delete Partition".
3. A. The reason you needed to delete the partition is because it MUST be FAT32. However, Windows XP will partition a hard drive into FAT32 but only in 32 GB partitions. Go to start,settings, control panel, administrative tools, computer management, disk management in the new box that opens. Using an open source OS like Linux will allow you to use the built in Gparted to partition the hard drive in most file structure formats with no size limit like on XP. This way will allow you to partition a drive into FAT32. You must instead go to DOWNLOAD.COM and search for "Swiss Knife". Download the program that comes up (CompuApps SwissKnife V3 x.xx) and install it when the download completes. Once the install is complete, run the application and select the external hard drive you need to partition. On the top select the following settings: (Partition Type: Primary), (File System: FAT32), and (Volume Label: [whatever you want]). Then at the bottom, select "Create" and you're done.
4. Alternatively you can format using the command prompt: format h: /FS:FAT32 (This works if you are running Windows Server 2003.)
5. If you are on Mac OS X, open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app, pick the drive, and click on the 'Erase' tab. Pick 'MS-DOS (FAT)' for the file system type, and click on the 'Erase' button. This will reformat the drive in FAT-32.
6. Once you are SURE the partition is FAT32, open "My Computer" and double-click on your empty external hard drive. Now, you will want to create a folder system identical to that on the Playstation 3. Right click to create a new folder and name the first folder "PICTURES". Do this for "MUSIC" "VIDEO" and "PS3" all in CAPS. When you are finished, you should have 4 folders total in the hard drive. Each folder should (at this point) be empty.
7. Now, you can load all the music you want into your music folder, all the video you want into your video folder, and all the photos you want into your photo folder. Your game folder should still be empty.
8. At the bottom right hand corner of the screen, left click the green arrow in your icons list and select "Safely remove..." Once your computer tells you "XXX drive can now be safely removed", unplug the hard drive from your computer.
9. Now, you can connect the hard drive to your Playstation 3 and use the extra space to save information and access all your extra content saved on your external hard drive.
10. Congratulations, you now have turned your 20, 60, or 80 gigabyte Playstation 3 into a much larger one for all your multi-media needs. Enjoy!

Tips

• Adding an external hard drive to your Playstation 3 does not void your warranty.
• It is unknown if there is a maximum size limit that the Playstation will be able to recognize. A 500GB HDD has been proven to work, however the maximum size is probably much higher.
• Information had to be gathered from several sites before these steps were successfully completed, so this is some of the best information you are going to find on how to do this on the web.
• If you want to play video on ps3, you can use Aimersoft PSP Video Converter, it fully support output of PS3 Video(480p, 720p, 1080i) MPEG-4 perfectly:http://www.aimersoft.com/psp-video-converter.html or you can use Red Kawa PS3 VIDEO 9 which will do exactly the same thing as the Aimersoft converter :http://www.redkawa.com/videoconverters/ps3video9/
• PS3 now supports DivX movies, so if your movies are in DivX format, you do not need to convert them.

Warnings

• Do not try to connect an external hard drive formatted in NTFS to your Playstation. It will not cause any kind of damage, but your Playstation 3 will not recognize the drive at all if you do. Also, if you lay your Playstation horizontally, do not place the external hard drive on the right side where the exhaust fans are aimed. The air coming out of the Playstation is very hot and will surely cause your external hard drive to malfunction... possibly permanently!

[youtube]BkM9wiZePfs[/youtube]

 

[akodoreign]

sounds almost identical to hooking a external to a Xbox 360

 

[yourbeliefs]

sounds almost identical to hooking a external to a Xbox 360

...You can do that?

 

[akodoreign]

...You can do that?

yup, and you can store the same things on it. Video (including divx), music, You just can't save files to it from the 360 or marketplace (have to put them on the HD at the computer then bring it over and play them).

 

[akodoreign]

YouTube - Connect a USB Hard Drive to a 360

 

[IcEWoLF]

good tutorial, last thing I want now is another object next to my 360 and PS3.

 

[vurbano]

this thread should be a sticky. Sooner or later a lot of people are gonna try it.

 

[korsjs]

this thread should be a sticky. Sooner or later a lot of people are gonna try it.

aggreed and done.

 

[yourbeliefs]

yup, and you can store the same things on it. Video (including divx), music, You just can't save files to it from the 360 or marketplace (have to put them on the HD at the computer then bring it over and play them).

Oh.. I was looking more into using it as more storage as opposed to it reading more media (like a flashstick.) Still good to know. If only MS would add native XviD/DivX support I'd be all set and not need TVersity.