New PS3 Firmware Causing HDD Upgrade Problems?

Channard writes "While there have been occasional reports of previous PS3 firmware upgrades causing system crashes and so forth, Sony's new firmware upgrade for the system, 3.41, is apparently stopping PS3 owners from upgrading their hard disks. This problem has been encountered by many users on Sony's forums and occurs when you try to put a new hard disk into a PS3 that already has the firmware upgrade installed. The general course of action for upgrading a PS3's drive is that you download the latest PS3 firmware onto a memory stick and, after swapping the hard drive in the PS3, plug the stick in, allowing the PS3 to properly prepare the disk for use. But as of upgrade 3.41, the PS3 fails to recognize the firmware on the stick, complaining that it can't proceed until you insert the correct firmware. Repeating the process and re-downloading the firmware does not fix the problem, as I can confirm, having encountered the problem myself. Users can put the old hard disk back in, provided they've not reformatted it for some other purpose, so all is not lost. Sony have apparently told gaming website CVG that 'The information available to our Consumer Services Department does not suggest that this is a problem PlayStation owners are likely to experience when upgrading the HDD with 3.41 update.' This seems to fly in the face of the currently available information — although whether or not this statement was issued by Kevin Butler is unclear. Either way, PS3 owners encountering this problem will likely have to wait a few days for a fix and use their old HDDs for now."

What's up with companies lately?

[Aladrin]

There have been so many companies in denial lately... Customers complain about a legit problem and they say 'It's not a problem. You're doing it wrong.' and try to ignore it. Then it blows up on them and they only respond when faced with hundreds of lawsuits. Seriously guys, start listening to your customers.

Remember!

[Daetrin]

The PS3, it only does everything! (Where "everything" does not include all the features removed by hardware or software "upgrades" since the release of the original model.)

Re:You're surprised?

[Reapman]

Or... maybe... it's a bug? Just throwing it out there.

Peanut butter cups

[GrumblyStuff]

"Hey! You got computer upgrade problems in my console!"

"You got simplified game design and locked down, monetization of normally free extras and support in my computer games!"

Sigh.

I remember this same conversation.

[Yosho-sama]

The day that PSN bugged out on Feb 29.

I kept reading about how this was Sony's plot to get everyone to upgrade to the new models in order to keep users from having access to the Other OS feature.

You guys need to chill the fuck out. It's a bug. Sony announced in advance that they were removing the Other OS feature from the firmware. They announce every time they release a firmware removing something. I'm not the Other OS removal wasn't a completely dick move (which it was), but they are always straight forward and have never made any (noticed) stealth changes to the firmware. Besides, I think they have enough Class Action Lawsuits on their plates to go and brick their own product for an unannounced, unreleased proprietary hard drive format.

Re:What's up with companies lately?

[Sleepy]

It's a balancing act. if a company REALLY listened to their customers, they would get sued by their shareholders instead. Yes, this does happen...

Re:You're surprised?

[CronoCloud]

Or the person involved didn't format the new drive properly, or follow instructions. There is always some idiot complaining that their firmware bricked their PS3 on slashdot right after a new firmware is announced. Slashdot is a sucker for anti-Sony whining without substantiated claims. Hell I've seen people claiming firmware takes away features that are still in there...just renamed or moved, or that work differently than before, a la:

"Sony took away my ability to listen to music while web browsing"

Do you have the new ability to output sound at higher khz on? you can only play music while browsing if output is set to 44.1

"oops"

"Sony took away my ability to use my new external hard drive"

Is it NTFS, if so, won't work.

"oops"

"The web browser text input doesn't work right!"

Earlier you mentioned you had to switch to SDTV because your HD set broke, you do realize that the text input has always worked like that on SD

"oops"

Yes, yes, be miffed at SCEA for taking away OtherOS by overestimating Geohot's abilities, but geezus don't automatically assuem the worst every time.

Re:Oh God...

[vuffi_raa]

this is a stupid mistake that sony made- normally you have to download the entire firmware, this is the first time that sony has experimented in releasing an incremental update so that the update only takes a couple of minutes instead of the usual half hour- most probably they will either need to make the software request additional components that will need to be on the thumb drive or create a drive formatting in the flash that allows for an incremental upgrade or just allow you to download the entire firmware from the website- I have inched my way up the drivespace ladder with spare drives that I have had sitting around so I went from a 40 to a 60 to a 120 so I have gone through the backup/install/load firmware process a few times now.