Restoring Saves/Trophies (from HDD BACKUP) After Formatting

[Berion]

I have already tell You how to do it in case of having AID. Yet is still open to discuss how user ownership works in case when You don't have AID (as everyone which never merged user account with specific SEN account). And unfortunately this is Your case. ^^ IMO there is no validation here besides user number and Open PSID (not IDPS, and not AID). But this is only my free thoughts, never checked.

I'm sorry but I forgot about user incremential number as @haxxxen mentioned. Probably this is the reason why You have so high user numbers and console don't accept lower. It is possible to reset... somewhere.

BTW: a quick guide about some names which I using:

• AID or NPAID: it is a unique per SEN user ID in Sony network across all their platforms
  
• IDPS: it is a unique console ID per every mother board
  
• OpenPSID: like above (?)
  
• User Number: user number, must match to user folder name in $home

Don't bother to resign data to new account. It is pain in the ass, believe me. Instead try figure out how to change user ID in settings/paths to match to Your data.

I'm attached below some tools but missing Flatz Tools (but probably it's part of Bruteforce SaveData with filled needed keys). But still, I do not recommend to resigning.

 

[sandungas]

My current user-ID, as shown in hdd/home is 00000001...
Which means anything I play and save from now on, will ALWAYS be linked to that, and if issues arise, I can just format and go back to where I was (without problems anymore).

Yeah, thats the point, im not sure but i think i mentioned it to you in the other thread when you bought the PS3 that one of the first things you should do with the new PS3 was to take the hdd out and format in PC (to reset that user counter to 00000001) before creating any savegame or trophy

I was in that dilemma too, with a 320gb hd with a few savegames and trophies, and my hdd started having problems and i started to learn how to transfer gamesaves and trophies... then i realized the files i needed to restore was generated by user 8 (or so)... and i was like "grrrrrr this sucks and i dont want to drag this problem forever"
So i formatted hdd in PC, reset it to 00000001, and give a F%$# about the savegames (temporally)

With the trophies there is no problem, because doesnt contains the user ID (only the ACCOUNT_ID), and because your ACCOUNT_ID is filled with zeroes (in source and target) you can just copypaste the trophy folders in the new profile, rebuild database and thats all
Only detail you need to know about this is after that... the first time you boot the game of that trophies appears an error on screen, but has no importance, when you pass this error screen the files are "fixed" automatically by the firmware and the trophy files are valid

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To clone a hdd i guess the most low level way is with linux and the dd command https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)
I have never tryed it but it should work because this command is "data agnostic" (is going to copy the data on raw, the filesystem and partitions never minds, and never minds if is encrypted)
You can boot a linux "live cd" to use it... i like this one https://clonezilla.org/
But if i where you i would practise with other hdd before (the most smaller the better, this way the tests are faster)

 

[sandungas]

Hmm, im thinking in it and im not sure if is a good idea to clone a PS3 hdd for backup purposes
The problem i see is the file is going to be huge

In a "normal" hdd after you clone it you can compress the file and the result is good because the hdd had lot of zeroes (like in your case 1TB capacity and 95% of it empty), this compresses very well because the compression algorithm finds lof of consecutive zeroes and instead of storing them it stores something like "zero * leght"
But in a PS3 hdd the partitions are encrypted... that encryption replaces all the zeroes (from unused areas) by some bytes (like if it was random), this compresses very bad

 

[UniqueUserName]

Thanks!

I know Im derailing my own thread (and Ill fix it later), but Ummm... :

VvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvVvV

My current user-ID, as shown in hdd/home is 00000001...
Which means anything I play and save from now on, will ALWAYS be linked to that, and if issues arise, I can just format and go back to where I was (without problems anymore).
Normally I use Macrium-Reflect to image by partition, or whole drive...
However, the drive does not show up in Macrium yet, and my PC wants to initialize the drive to do so (but IM SCARED! LOL)...
How do I make the PS3 1TB HDD show up in Windows without compromising the integrity of the drive itself and data within, so it will still work in the PS3?

Is it okay to initialize?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

@sandungas
I already did what you said and just let those saves go lol (honestly I could not have cared-less about the trophies), just didnt want to play another 30 hours of GT6, but I am already 12 hours into just that.

@Berion
I am positive you gave me the proper-advice (thank you!), but Im just way-too-new to understand, and I waited soooo long between advice-posts (varying/different advice from 3-different-people = just confused/frustrated me, even more), that I just gave up on it and started over, so it would never become a problem ever again (and I would always have "00000001" ID, from-now-on).

Was information overload (to me), and nothing at all to due with you folks.

 

[sandungas]

@sandungas
I already did what you said and just let those saves go lol (honestly I could not have cared-less about the trophies), just didnt want to play another 30 hours of GT6, but I am already 12 hours into just that.

Good, a couple of game sessions more and you will be at the same point
I was going to tell you i could help in converting the old gamesave by patching your PARAM.SFO (and you doing the PARAM.PFD update because for this is needed a key that is private and you should not share) but at this point i guess it doesnt matters, the new gamesave will be better

Eventually if at some point you want to practise that, is the same procedure than importing any gamesave from any game and any random user (in gamefaqs there are a lot), if you decide to try it... better practise with another game (where you dont have gamesaves from it), just to avoid conflicts in between gamesaves (im not sure if could happen conflicts)

 

[ZeroOne]

The easiest way is just backup data by file manager (which You have done), restore it in proper user number dir (i.e "dev_hdd0/home/00000000/"), and replacing new xRegstry.sys by old from backup and at the end of course reb db.

I was about to install a patched rebug .PUP to create an otheros++ partition, "restore system", replace the xRegistry.sys and "home" directory with my current backups and then rebuild database to restore my current PS3 setup (users, activation, etc). After reading through this thread I'm now worried I might have missed something...

Is the current user count restored when xRegistry.sys and "home" backups are restored (after "Rebuild Database")?

I thought it was quite a straight forward process (exactly like Berion mentions) and assumed my user count would also be restored?

 

[Berion]

@ZeroOne In post no.4 I have wrote procedure. However there are some things which are not confirmed for peoples with AID == 0000000000000000 (which means: peoples who didn't set user account to SEN account). Second thing are Other OS loader and different size partitions for yet unset 'regions'. I'm not sure if there are settings specify boot in xRegistry.sys. If such options exist, You cannot just replace this file. I just don't know how it looks boot chain so I just assuming possibility that is setting up in this file (but can be anywhere lower). But still, You can copy new xRegistry, edit and overwrite it after edit.

In short: PS3 recognize user by AID (id from PARAM.SFO and inside registry) and user number (dir name inside $home and inside registry).

 

[sandungas]

...However there are some things which are not confirmed for peoples with AID == 0000000000000000 (which means: peoples who didn't set user account to SEN account)

Well, i did some experiments with that as i explained and was working, the bigger difference is everything is easyer when you have that ACCOUNT_ID filled with zeroes

 

[Berion]

@sandungas So I must missed it somehow. Good news, so then getting AID is cancer on PS3.