Debug Unit Data Recovery

[Sko]

Hello everyone,
I am new here so first wanted to say hello. I have gotten access to two PS3 dev kits (a TOOL and a TEST unit). Before I do anything with them I would like like to clone the drives to protect any data that might be "deleted" on them. Is there any software tool that you would recommend for cloning PS3 drives or any hard drive cloning tool should work?
Has anyone done any work around data recovery on PS3 dev systems?

Thanks!

 

[Skye1337]

How to preserve a HDD based Game System

This guides a work in progress. It doesn't cover data recovery at this time. It'll work on most hard drive based systems even if encrypted. DISCLAIMER: if you mess it up, we are not responsible! Perform this at own risk! Most important! DO NOT EVEN USE THE SYSTEM! Using/Booting it can cause...

www.obscuregamers.com

 

[Tdijital]

That's exciting! There's a group of us working on ps3 data recovery, there's a lot that can be recovered on these drives. A lot of it is manual right now, but some tools are being worked on.

Dumping an image of the drive is fairly easy and the link Skye1337 posted should describe the process well. After that you will need to decrypt it, Damien covers that in the pinned topic:

PS3 HDD Decryption Tool (EXCLUSIVE TO OG!) | Obscure Gamers

Share the decrypted images if you can or message on Discord, recovery is a bit complicated right now. R-studio is your best bet for out of the box recovery, but it's not perfect. If you share we can dig into it deeper.

 

[Sko]

Thanks! I got the clone done of the drive on the "tool" unit using DD but using the PS3 HDD decryption tool I can't seem to actually decrypt it. I get an error every time I attempt to open the .img file Input file dump.img is not found. The clone using DD is called dump.img and it is a .img file. Any idea why I can't seem to get the software to fine/open the file? my command should be correct based on the input requirements of the command line "hdd_decrpyt.exe dump.img eid_root_key decrypted.img

Yah I figured that alot of the process is still pretty manual. I do have a copy of Rstudio paid version as I have used it before for data recovery so once I get this decrypted I am happy to throw it at Rstudio and see what we can find, and if there is anything useful of course archive it all

Thanks for any help!

 

[mementomori]

Thanks! I got the clone done of the drive on the "tool" unit using DD but using the PS3 HDD decryption tool I can't seem to actually decrypt it. I get an error every time I attempt to open the .img file Input file dump.img is not found. The clone using DD is called dump.img and it is a .img file. Any idea why I can't seem to get the software to fine/open the file? my command should be correct based on the input requirements of the command line "hdd_decrpyt.exe dump.img eid_root_key decrypted.img

Yah I figured that alot of the process is still pretty manual. I do have a copy of Rstudio paid version as I have used it before for data recovery so once I get this decrypted I am happy to throw it at Rstudio and see what we can find, and if there is anything useful of course archive it all

Thanks for any help!

Did you dump the eid_root_key? You need that to decrypt the image, otherwise it won't work.