Geting saves from broken console

[watercooled]

I don't own a PS3 myself, but my friend does and it recently fried and he had to buy a refurbished one from Sony. His saves and stuff are on the HDD on the old console but obviously it won't switch on but even when I installed it in the new console (after spending a good while trying to get the screws out of the HDD because the cage is a different shape in his new console) it said something about an update and to visit the SCE website. After a while I managed to put the update on a flash drive and start the update procedure but then I got a screen saying it would erase the HDD. So, I removed the drive and installed it in his PC but it wasn't partitioned (or even initialised) as far as Windows could see. Does anyone know how to get the saves off the drive so he can move them to his new one? Like I said I don't own a PS3 so I'm not familiar with it.
All help appreciated

[watercooled]

Any ideas?

[Mousemat]

Well if Windows can't read it, you could always boot from a Linux Live CD and see if that can pick anything up. It might just be the way the drive is formatted, but on the other hand the drive might be corrupted if the PS3 "fried".

[MaddAussie]

Put it in another ps3?

[watercooled]

Well if Windows can't read it, you could always boot from a Linux Live CD and see if that can pick anything up. It might just be the way the drive is formatted, but on the other hand the drive might be corrupted if the PS3 "fried".

I'll give Linux a try next time I see him but it didn't even look like the drive had been initialised. Probably some sort of proprietary file system used by Sony.

Put it in another ps3?

Check my first post - I did try it in another PS3 but it was asking for an update. When it was about to perform the update, it said it was going to format the drive.


Thanks!

[Mousemat]

I'll give Linux a try next time I see him but it didn't even look like the drive had been initialised. Probably some sort of proprietary file system used by Sony.

Yeah, it looks like it is a proprietary file system http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=733. I thought it might have been an EXT3 format since the PS3 only regonnises FAT32 and EXT3 for external media.

[poozle]

Check my first post - I did try it in another PS3 but it was asking for an update. When it was about to perform the update, it said it was going to format the drive.

To me this sounds like when the original PS3 went it took the hard drive with it Everyone I've ever spoken to who's had to get a refurb console it was simply a case of putting the new hard drive in and it worked straight off the bat. Have you tried a different hard drive in the new console.

Maybe try a different hard drive and then install the latest update onto the console, THEN switch the hard drive from the old console in and see if it still mentions formatting...

[watercooled]

I don't think the drive is dead because IIRC it appeared in disk management, just it appeared empty. The console has been updated with the new drive in but maybe the update is stored on the HDD rather than onboard EEPROM like the 360. Maybe the HDD is corrupted or something.