Question about PS3 Drive swapping

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by Xerious

i had this issue arise when attempting to swap out my 60 gig and 80 gig drives. they are both OEM, seagate drives however they are "married" to the original console they were shipped with. in away, it's kinda like bluetooth... you can't have one headset (HDD) paired with two devices (PS3). there's an "activation key" which ties your HDD to your PS3. that tie is broken when you switch drives and is restored to the new drive. so, regardless of whether they are formated for the PS3, they will not accept a swap from a different console other than their original HDD without a format. if you swap it out, the PS3 will request that you format the old drive and wipe out all your data. so... it works, but you can't swap drives and expect that the old PS3 data will be on there. obviously not many people come across this because they usually just upgrade their HDDs rather than swap them with existing ones. sorry bro, it's not like a memory card

The solution to the activation key "problem" is .. the PS3 comes with a backup and restore utility (including protected content) so you don't lose data when swapping/upgrading your drive.