Latest firmware update bricks PS3s with modified HDDs

If you’ve connected your PlayStation 3 to the Internet today and it asked you to update your firmware, don’t do it. The firmware, numbered at 4.45, seems to have a bug that is bricking PS3s. The problem doesn’t seem to be universal. Only consoles that have been modified to add an HDD with more than 500GB of storage seem to be affected. This, however, is yet to be confirmed. Sony is yet to say anything on the matter.

PlayStation 3 owners have taken to the official PlayStation forums to vent their grievances with the update.

All is not well in PlayStation-land

The brick issue is presumably not intentional, since Sony hasn’t ever mentioned in the past that changing the console’s HDD is against the Terms of Service of the console. The company will probably be releasing an update that fixes the issue soon. To do so, you’ll have to access the PS3’s Safe Mode, since the XMB interface of the console will be unavailable.

Booting the console up into Safe Mode is a lengthy process, but it is relatively simple. You can check out how to do so here . From the Safe Mode, you can simply make the PS3 install a new firmware from a USB drive as long as it is formatted in FAT32.

Update: Sony has pulled the update down from its website’s manual download section, and presumably from the console’s servers as well. The firmware update was originally aimed at fixing some issues with system stability and gave users the ability to turn off Trophy notifications.