Latest PS3 Firmware Update Requires Hard Disk Wipe to Fix

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier today Sony launched firmware V2.40 for the PS3 which is mandatory for online play. To my horror after installing the update my console wouldn't boot, and this appears to be a not uncommon problem affecting all ages and models of PS3s. Although there is rampant fanboy denial over at the official Playstation forums, the Kotaku article details the issue and has a suggested solution if you don't mind yanking your PS3's hard drive."

Which is why...

[Darkness404]

Which is why firmware upgrades like how MS/Nintendo/Sony have them are a bad idea. Rather then just small patches, a lot of them overwrite a lot of the base code. It would be like rather then just patching Windows, you formatted your HD and started over from backups, now the firmware upgrades aren't exactly like that, but it is similar to the risks that it takes. And most firmware updates don't *need* to be done in the first place, and the makers certainly shouldn't prevent you from online play if you don't upgrade unless it would be a natural by-product of the upgrade (like the online play server was moved or something). But really, upgradable firmware in game consoles is just a bad idea to use.

Here's a bit of advice

[dannycim]

Next update, do a backup, then accept the update. Worse comes to worst, wipe the disk and restore the backup. The snag is that you _can't_ format the drive inside of the PS3 as the XMB menu doesn't come up.

Still, I'm pretty surprised that Sony doesn't have better QA on something like firmware updates. One mis-step and they can end up with millions of bricks in the wild. They should have a "restore previous firmware version" at a very low-level in the firmware. Something triggered by holding a button or two during power-up.

Rampant..?

[Squozen]

'Rampant denial'? I updated last night and had no problems. I don't know that any of my PS3-owning friends had problems. I guess that makes us 'fanboys'.

Point #1 - Any firmware update has the potential to go wrong, especially when it's as large as the PS3 firmware is (130Mb) and can be downloaded over flaky links and installed from potentially faulty hard drives.

Point #2 - Wiping the drive shouldn't be an issue if people are running backups like they should be. Sony *do* provide a backup utility for this. Don't read this as an excuse for Sony - if the firmware is flawed, they should have done more testing, but EVERYBODY should be backing up their data if they care about it!

Re:Which is why...

[secolactico]

What is needed (I don't know if there is) is a "failsafe" boot image stored in ROM that does not get flashed. If a firmware upgrade screws the OS, the system will boot from this image and be able to get online and retrieve a fix. Or maybe revert to the old one.

Or maybe even read the fix from a disk and apply it.

Re:Which is why...

[mattack2]

It's not really the same as what you describe, but from what I've read, Tivos have a separate partition that they load the software upgrades onto. Only after the update is fully done, that partition is set to be the current boot partition.

While it doesn't allow you to fall back to the last version, it at least does hopefully prevent a partially updated and unbootable system.

Re:Rampant..?

[SuiteSisterMary]

Any firmware update has the potential to go wrong, especially when it's as large as the PS3 firmware is (130Mb) and can be downloaded over flaky links and installed from potentially faulty hard drives.

Sorry, that doesn't fly. Checksums have been a known quantity for decades.

Wiping the drive shouldn't be an issue if people are running backups like they should be. Sony *do* provide a backup utility for this. Don't read this as an excuse for Sony - if the firmware is flawed, they should have done more testing, but EVERYBODY should be backing up their data if they care about it!

Again, doesn't fly. Rollbacks and non-destructive upgrades have been a known quantity for decades. And you have zero excuse when your update is less than one percent of your smallest target harddrive.