My 160GB PS3 Won't Play Games

[Kid Ryan]

My used 160GB PS3 is refusing to play any of my physical retail game bluray discs.

I think it's the bluray drive/laser, but not 100% sure. Anyways, I was hoping someone here could help me solve the issue please?

Preferably without having to spend any money, I'll be broke until July 26th.

[Kid Ryan]

Update: I had my friend look at my 160GB Slim PS3 again, and apparently it's either the Blu-Ray drive itself that's malfunctioning, which will cost me $80 New on eBay, or it's the HDD, in which case I'm hoping just formatting it and re-installing the PS3 OS will fix the problem.

If it is the HDD and formatting/reinstalling doesn't work, I have my eyes set on a 500GB Western Digital for only $50 New on Amazon.

I just hope they're not both malfunctioning, I can't afford to spend $130 all at once.

[SeijiSensei]

Last I saw putting a larger hard drive in a PS3 won't expand your storage. The PS3 automatically formats the drive and, I believe, creates only a 160 GB partition on any drive installed regardless of size. I'd do some research before you buy that drive.

I wouldn't spend a lot of money on this device myself. I'd buy a used or refurb model from e-bay.

[blaze0041]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Last I saw putting a larger hard drive in a PS3 won't expand your storage. The PS3 automatically formats the drive and, I believe, creates only a 160 GB partition on any drive installed regardless of size. I'd do some research before you buy that drive.

I wouldn't spend a lot of money on this device myself. I'd buy a used or refurb model from e-bay.

Where did you get your info from? Yes, the PS3 will format the drive (and it can only be used on the PS3 it was formatted on without losing all data), but it can use the full capacity of the drive.
I have a 40GB PS3 (the fat ones that didn't have PS2 backwards compatibility, which now no longer works thanks to a YLOD), and I successfully upgraded that with a 500GB 2.5" SATA hard drive.
I got myself a 12GB super-slim PS3 a while ago, and used the same 500GB hard drive successfully as well (albeit losing all of my existing data and paying extra for the HDD caddy, but that's fine).
For the record, the hard drive I've got is the Seagate Momentus 2.5" 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 5400RPM 8MB Hard Drive (HDD) (ST9500325AS).

If you decide to upgrade the hard drive, I would strongly recommend performing a backup of the current PS3's hard drive beforehand (you will need a FAT32 formatted external drive for this). Instructions here.

[SeijiSensei]

You know, I realized I was confusing my PS3 and my cable box The latter was the device that wouldn't format past 160 GB.

I've backed up the system to a network file share as well as external drives. The PS3 only recognizes CIFS, I believe, the filesharing protocol used by Windows. I cannot get it to see my NFS server at all.

[Kid Ryan]

Originally Posted by blaze0041

If you decide to upgrade the hard drive, I would strongly recommend performing a backup of the current PS3's hard drive beforehand (you will need a FAT32 formatted external drive for this). Instructions here.

Thanks for the helpful advice. While I'd love to also upgrade my HDD too, if I do buy the Blu-Ray Drive instead, it'll be awhile before I worry about the HDD.

(unless the HDD is so broken/screwed up, that not even formatting it helps)