PS3 will not boot

[MRpeabody]

Hey guys, I attempted to upgrade the hdd in my phat ps3 yesterday. Everything was going well until the update process. I set it up to run the update and had to leave the room for a bit. Came back and the screen was black, no status, nothing. The power light was still green but the system was unresponsive. After letting it sit for a long while I powered it off via the back switch (probably a bad idea but no other way). I attempted to start the system up but it will only turn on and the screen remains black. I'm able to access Safe Mode but all of the options return errors. I've swapped the old hard drive back into the system and it yields the same results.

Has anyone else encoutered this problem?

I do have another working ps3 so I had thought I could take one of the "bad" hard drives and put it in the working Ps3. Then run through all of the restore features in Safe Mode. Place the newly formatted drive into the non working ps3 and try to run through the hdd upgrade process again.

any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

thanks,

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[jc_gargma]

There isn't really a bad HDD, but rather Sony's "oopsie" firmwares that semi-brick systems not using the factory installed HDD. (Its happened like 4 different times.)

Assuming it is an "oopsie" firmware, (which if you updated to most recent, 4.53 would be unexpected,) you need the original unformatted HDD inserted.

Some of the advice from the previous thread on the matter. Hopefully it helps.

In theory, the primary steps are the have the original un-formatted HDD inserted, and then attempt to reinstall the exact same firmware entirely.
If you've already formatted the HDD, a possible step that has supposedly worked for some users to full-format the original HDD as exFAT, and then try installing the firmware again.

Otherwise, the options are installing a hardware flasher to downgrade to 3.55, or sending it to Sony for repairs.

Apologies if this is not the most clearcut guide. There was never really any clear answers released on how to solve this, and I'm mostly trying to piece together as much as I can from what I can find.

if you can(you will have to open it) is to unplug the clock battery from the motherboard for about an hour
this will reset the clock in it as well as any odd settings, then plug it back in, use original sized drive for the model and run from recovery mode, and restore everything to factory and instal the updated again before going through the trouble of ordering a new board

ive repaired a few with this issue, its not easy and its a coin toss on whether your going to git it going right again....sony shaved the monkey to the bone on this one...

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[MRpeabody]

Thanks jc. I did read those other threads and thought those solutions were worth a shot. I just wanted a little reassurance as my situation seemed a bit different. I plan on buying a SATA cable tonight and use my laptop to format the original HDD to exfat or NTFS and then reinstalling it into the PS in the hopes it will be reformatted and I can go from there.