Why doesn't my PS3 backup restore game saves & data on a new system?
I had an old 80Gb PS3 from 2009 which suddenly had a hard disk error a few weeks back, saying:
Could not start, The appropriate storage system was not found.
I had backed it up a week prior this this error on an external HDD. I have had to exchange the PS3 for a super slim model, since the older one couldn't be fixed.
However when I tried restoring from my backup onto the newer PS3, The restore function took only 3 minutes, but all my game data & saves were not restored. Only my music/images were restored.
Why aren't my game data/saves restoring from my old backup from the other PS3 onto my newer PS3?
Solution 1:
From the PS3 Backup Utiltity page:
The following copy-protected content will not be transferable:
- Digital Right Management (DRM)
- PlayStation® format software game data
- PlayStation®2 format software game data
- PlayStation®3 format software Game Save Data flagged as unexportable
- Trophy data, trophy data is saved onto your Sony Entertainment Network account
It's possible all your game saves were "flagged as unexportable". I don't know of any way to check, especially since your old drive is gone.
You could buy a new drive for your old PS3, restore back to it, then use the Data Transfer Utility to transfer everything to the new PS3. This works because the two consoles are connected via Ethernet and the old PS3 decrypts everything, and sends it to the new PS3, where it is encrypted with the new PS3's encryption keys.
After restoring to the new drive on your old PS3, you could join PlayStation Plus. Subscribers get up to 1GB of online storage for game saves. Sign in to your old PS3, let the saves transfer online, then sign into your new PS3.
Solution 2:
Unfortunately the Back Up Utility is only functional with the PS3 system that was backed up. You can't restore the information to a new PS3.
This is to prevent things like game sharing and copy-right infringement.