[PS3]PS3 HDD Analysis

April 17th, 2007, 03:56 Posted By: F9zDark

HanSooloo has shared some interesting results from a preliminary HDD analysis…

1. The HDD is encrypted with a (most probably) Sony proprietary format.
2. If Linux is setup on the machine, the HDD will contain the relevant ext2 or ext3 partitions, but it will NOT be visible to a regular OS. This is because, the HDD does NOT have a standard partition table. If one uses WinHex to scan the HDD, then the program will find the ext2/ext3/swap partitions at their respective offsets.
3. A program has been written to scan blocks of 16bytes for where contiguous data is on the HDD. This program has identified major blocks of data on a freshly formatted 60GB HDD.
4. Of major interest is that right around the 380MB marker, we start seeing blocks of 64KB data, and this repeats itself EVERY 183.72MBs. Why does a system need 64KB worth of markers every so often, is a mystery at the moment.
5. Each HDD is "individualized" the moment it is formatted on a particular PS3 unit. An individualized HDD CANNOT be used in another PS3 unit due to (in theory) a unit based signature being written to each HDD.
6. A project is underway to "individualize" 2 same make and model (Seagate Momentus 60GB 2.5" SATA) HDDs and perform a byte level diff to spot differences in the disk layouts.
7. This diff will also be analyzed by the data block scanning program mentioned in Item-3 above.

I wonder… Will the long overdue ISO loader be able to play backed up images off the HDD? Hrm…


Poster's Notes:

It doesn't surprise me that Sony would have encrypted the PS3 partition of the hard-drive, making it somewhat tamper resistant. However this encryption does seem to have some implications with 3rd party developers.

For instance, there are so far, two game companies (that I know) developing titles for the PS3 that seem to believe that downloadable content may not be possible for it. While its strange to hear of that, considering other companies have released updates and content for games on PS3, its also something to be concerned with.

Does this belief that downloadable content for PS3 is not possible stem from the strange encryption encountered on the PS3 partition of the HDD? Is it due to the fact that these companies are unwilling to research and develop a content delivery method that would accommodate the PS3?

One of the companies I know to have said this is Bethesda, the makers of Oblivion. They have 3 platforms for which Oblivion is home to: PC, Xbox360 and PS3. The ease of installation of mods on PC is nothing short of spectacular; however, the official mods are not unified; one must download the mod for PC AND for the Xbox360 if they wish to have the same features in both copies of the game.

Having to also accommodate the PS3 may not be something that Bethesda is interested in, especially if they need to 'start from scratch' with every mod they want to make on the PS3.

What are your thoughts?

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