Does the PS3 "Backup Utility" actually back up PS1 and PS2 Virtual Memory Card savegames, or doesn't it?

July 5, 2012 4:47 PM

Does the PS3 "Backup Utility" actually back up PS1 and PS2 Virtual Memory Card savegames, or doesn't it?

The internet is full of contradictory or confusing answers to this question.

I've got an original "60GB" PS3. The one that has the hardware guts of a PS2 inside it.
At the time I bought it, I imported all of my old memory cards (from PS1 and PS2), then I threw out the memory cards and re-sold the USB memory card attachment thingamajigger.

Years later, I am finding myself wanting to get back into videogaming, seeing that everything is Downloadable these days, and hitting the limit of 60GB.
I have purchased a new, larger, hard drive.. and I just want to answer this simple question.

Will my Virtual Memory Card savegames be automatically updated as part of the Backup Utility option? Or do I need to back them up manually (which is a tedious process, since it's one-at-a-time and doesn't keep track of which memory card each one came from)?

Answers from actual experience preferred, since documentation and other google searches are somehow confusing the heck out of me.

posted by jozxyqk to computers & internet (13 answers total)

Oops. "updated" should be "backed up".
posted by jozxyqk at 4:48 PM on July 5, 2012

Followup question, which could save me some hassle: If I take out my 60GB drive and put the new bigger drive in, restore, and find out things are missing, can I swap out and put my original 60GB back into the PS3 and backup whatever else is needed? Or is the hard drive "disowned" at this point already?
posted by jozxyqk at 5:37 PM on July 5, 2012

In my experience, any time a hard drive is taken out it must be reformatted before use. This process erases any data on the drive. Good luck :)
posted by quietta at 5:39 PM on July 5, 2012

quietta I'm not sure which situation you're responding to.
In the original question, my new hard drive will definitely get formatted; the question is about the backup data from the old hard drive. Supposedly the Backup Utility backs up "everything", and it can all be Restored onto the new drive, but there are conflicting reports on what is included in "everything".

In my "Followup" question.. I doubt that the PS3 tries to reformat the drive *just* because it is removed and re-added; that's just a similar situation to the power going out. I was more concerned that the PS3 might only be able to be "paired" with one hard drive (by some sort of hardware ID) at a time, which gets reinitialized after the new drive is formatted. If swapping hard drives, and then swapping back, doesn't work, then I just hope to get the backup right the first time.


sorry for babysitting the question
posted by jozxyqk at 5:53 PM on July 5, 2012

I just did this a couple days ago, went from a 80gb drive to a 320gb drive.

As far as I can tell, the backup utility backs up everything except video you've bought/rented from the PSN store. All of my PS1 and PS3 saves were there, all of my downloaded games were there, all of the video I'd loaded on there was there, and all of the other accounts from my Game Sharing days were there. The only minor hiccups were 1) it took two and a half hours to backup the ~50gb of data to an external hard drive, and only slightly less to restore it and 2) when I put the new drive into the PS3, I had to then install the 4.20 firmware from a USB stick before it would let me restore the contents of the old hard drive.

Let me know if you have any questions.
posted by Oktober at 5:31 AM on July 6, 2012

Oh, and the PS3 will reserve a certain portion (12%?) of the new drive for cache, plus hard drive manufacturers use deceptive labeling, so that 320 drive was like 250/298 usable once I had it installed.
posted by Oktober at 5:38 AM on July 6, 2012

Thank you, Oktober! I'll hopefully be receiving my new hard drive tonight. I'll report back.
posted by jozxyqk at 5:56 AM on July 6, 2012

stunningly, the ps3 backup utility does not save/restore ps1 and ps2 game saves. they recommend that you transfer them to a USB drive or memory stick.

i do know that you can put your old drive back into the ps3 after installing a new drive. the data on the drive is paired to the ps3, but the ps3 is not paired to a particular drive.
posted by bruceo at 10:05 AM on July 6, 2012

He's going to need a USB hard drive to do the backup, he could just manually copy his saves.
posted by Oktober at 10:38 AM on July 6, 2012

See this is what I'm talking about.. already contradictory answers. Oktober said that his PS1/PS2 saves came over and bruceo said they didn't :( Which is it?

I guess I'll find out when the drive actually shows up....
posted by jozxyqk at 2:31 PM on July 6, 2012

And bruceo's link doesn't say "can't be backed up", it says "not transferable". That implies to me that it will back up that data, but it won't restore it onto a different PS3. It's just really poorly worded, which is the obvious source of my confusion.
posted by jozxyqk at 2:36 PM on July 6, 2012

Flawless victory!

Everything -- *everything* -- restored just perfectly. Including my PS1/PS2 saves and all. I'm very happy!
posted by jozxyqk at 6:32 PM on July 6, 2012

(and it didn't force me to reinstall any firmware updates or anything)
posted by jozxyqk at 6:42 PM on July 6, 2012