PS3 Yellow light of death....

[crunchywyte]

I recently experienced the yellow light of death on my 60GB PS3. The problem is that I did not have a chance to back up my data before this happened.

So I am wondering if any of you all know any possible ways to get data off the hard drive? I am currently using a 80GB PS3, a friend of mine is letting me borrow until I get mine back, he has 2.

I have not got my box from Sony yet so I still have a few days to attempt to get my data, if it is even possible.

thanks.

[VinnAY]

I take it this yellow light thing means you can't even get to the XMB? (I've never heard of the yellow light death thingy...?) If you can't get to the XMB, then it's D E A D for sure. Couple of times my system crapped out it was just the BD drive, the system itself still functioned.

[CptGreedle]

Not familiar with the yellow light of death.
If it is a PS3 thing, the HDD should be fine. Just take it out and put it in a new/fixed one.
If it is an HDD thing, it is going to be hard to get it back.
Some places offer recovery services for data, which are usually very expensive, and not 100% effective. The best you can hope for is that a disk utility might be able to fix the problem.

Good Luck.

[crunchywyte]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Not familiar with the yellow light of death.
If it is a PS3 thing, the HDD should be fine. Just take it out and put it in a new/fixed one.
If it is an HDD thing, it is going to be hard to get it back.
Some places offer recovery services for data, which are usually very expensive, and not 100% effective. The best you can hope for is that a disk utility might be able to fix the problem.

Good Luck.

yellow light of death is what I found it to be called from searching google on my issue.

I was playing CoD W@W and out of no where my PS3 shut down and beeped, when I turned it back on the light goes green as it normally does for 1 sec. then to Yellow, then to blinking red and beeps then shuts down. I can not even get my CoD W@W disc out of the system, it does not stay on long enough for me to eject it.

would it work if I put my 60GB Hard Drive in an 80GB PS3, would I be able to access my data then?

[CptGreedle]

If your HDD is unharmed by the crash (or not responsible for it), you should be able to put it in a new PS3, or even copy the information onto a new PS3 and it should be like new.
Make sure that if you give your PS3 to Sony, that they don't harm the HDD.
Also, look up to see what the yellow light means, as in what is wrong. If it is a HDD thing, then you are out of luck.

[crunchywyte]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

If your HDD is unharmed by the crash (or not responsible for it), you should be able to put it in a new PS3, or even copy the information onto a new PS3 and it should be like new.
Make sure that if you give your PS3 to Sony, that they don't harm the HDD.
Also, look up to see what the yellow light means, as in what is wrong. If it is a HDD thing, then you are out of luck.

from what I've read on the playstation forums, it is a internal fan or something like that.

[CptGreedle]

Well if it is an overheating problem then, then your HDD should be fine. If you take it out, you should back it up manually (like on a pc with a disc copy tool).
I would send it to them though in the PS3 since that is how it came to you. If it is a fan problem, it should be an easy fix.

[crunchywyte]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Well if it is an overheating problem then, then your HDD should be fine. If you take it out, you should back it up manually (like on a pc with a disc copy tool).
I would send it to them though in the PS3 since that is how it came to you. If it is a fan problem, it should be an easy fix.

I was wondering about that, because I read on another forum that you can not hook the PS3 drives up to PC's to back them up because they are Per PS3 encrypted or something...

[Navster]

Originally Posted by crunchywyte

yellow light of death is what I found it to be called from searching google on my issue.

I was playing CoD W@W and out of no where my PS3 shut down and beeped, when I turned it back on the light goes green as it normally does for 1 sec. then to Yellow, then to blinking red and beeps then shuts down. I can not even get my CoD W@W disc out of the system, it does not stay on long enough for me to eject it.

would it work if I put my 60GB Hard Drive in an 80GB PS3, would I be able to access my data then?

Wow i feel for ya bro, same thing happend to my ps3 while watching a movie, your gonna have to call sony customer support which is very rude by the way, your looking at about 2-3 weeks replacement, at a cost of $150, they will send you a refurbished ps3, and u will also get your game back as well...

[crunchywyte]

Originally Posted by NavsterKing

Wow i feel for ya bro, same thing happend to my ps3 while watching a movie, your gonna have to call sony customer support which is very rude by the way, your looking at about 2-3 weeks replacement, at a cost of $150, they will send you a refurbished ps3, and u will also get your game back as well...

you sent them a 60GB and they sent you back an 80GB?

[Seeking_Alpha]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Well if it is an overheating problem then, then your HDD should be fine. If you take it out, you should back it up manually (like on a pc with a disc copy tool).
I would send it to them though in the PS3 since that is how it came to you. If it is a fan problem, it should be an easy fix.

How sure are you about this info? Do you have a utility to read the formatting?

I've experienced the yellow light myself and sadly my 160 gb hdd, after being placed into an external enclosure, cannot be read by windows xp, linux ubuntu 8.04 or even be identified by Gparted partition editor. Connecting it to a working PS3 doesn't work either, it won't even show up on the XMB.

And when I got back a refurbished PS3 replacing the hdd from the stock 60 gb to my old 160 gb did not work because the PS3 immediately reformatted it.

So to the OP, sorry but all your game saves are now in data heaven.

[Seeking_Alpha]

Originally Posted by crunchywyte

you sent them a 60GB and they sent you back an 80GB?

Nope if you have a 60 you'll get a 60.

The rep I talked to was very professional and not rude at all btw. I guess it's just the luck of the draw

[Branden]

Originally Posted by crunchywyte

So I am wondering if any of you all know any possible ways to get data off the hard drive?

you've got a few options for getting data off it, if you're tech-fluent enough to want to try:
1) you could just swap the drive into the borrowed PS3 and use it to then copy your data onto a USB drive
2) you could plug it into a linux computer or give this software a shot (i'm assuming the PS3 uses an ext2 file system)
3) you could use partition imaging software, such as acronis true image, to back it up until your PS3 returns.

i've never tried any of the above options myself, so i can't claim they would work or even be 'safe' to try. also keep in mind that unless the HDD itself is the problem it will likely go untouched while being serviced, you may not lose anything at all.