Hi Assemblergames, On my PS4 console I have a very early build from a game that was never released to the public. I would like to know if it was possible to back up this game on an external hard drive in case some failure occurs with my PS4 console in the future. I don't have immediate plans to release it or anything because it might net me into trouble for the time being, but I feel it would be important for me to save this so that maybe in the future it can be shared and maybe dug into further than what I'm able to actually play Thank you
Yes, if youre on 1.76 firmware and can boot it then you can back it up and dump the contents (backups without extracting contents will lead to issues) If you're on post 1.76 then the answer is no, not until a more easily accessible method of exploits is public. May i ask if your system is retail or development hardware?
That's a shame, my ps4 is currently updated because I use it somewhat regularly. I do have a normal retail fat PS4, not development hardware Thank you for your reply
Thank you. I will admit this is difficult due to my addiction to Destiny but I'll try my very best to do this If I'm lucky the next Destiny will come to PC before too many new ps4 updates come out
I wouldnt bet on it. If you absolutely must, just get a second PS4 for all your stuff to keep up to date as some have
Couldn't he buy a barely used PS4 and stick the HDD into it? Or would it cause to load the last update from it?
as with the ps3, the ps4 also uses per console encryption. If he did, the new drive would need to be formatted, and the old drive would not be able to be accessed anymore, thus would lose a prototype. at that, putting the old drive into a different ps4 would require it to be formatted, so youd lose it as well. you must keep the original in the original system under all circumstances. it is much safer to not mess with it and just buy a second ps4 until there is an easy way to do things - and i stress this because even doing things on 1.76 regularly breaks things and causes the hdd to need formatting, so there no safe way to even get it off the system either
Yogurtstorm, I suggest removing the hard drive and dump it to file on a Linux system with a command like: dd if=/dev/sdb of=my_encrypted_ps4_hdd.bin bs=64K conv=noerror,sync Where 'sdb' is the PS4 hard drive device in this case, it can be any device name "sd*", have to check. Yes, the data is still encrypted, but can be decrypted if the PS4 gets completely hacked some day, also works as an encrypted backup in case you want to restore it on the same PS4 console. To restore, just swap "if=" (in file) with "of=" (out file) in the command. If you don't have any native Linux system installed somewhere you can use a boot disc for PC, eg. Parted Magic, Knoppix, or similar. If you have an USB docking station for SATA hard drives it will work fine under Linux, probably the easiest way to dump, and good thing to have for restoring and backing hard drives in general.
There are way too many partitions to correctly know where to look. There's about 18 of them. Granted you may find it, but I VERY MUCH DOUBT IT. Also a rule of thumb, ALWAYS be careful with the dd command.
It's almost impossible to do something destructive when using a file as output. Device to device copy is dangerous yeah, because people can set wrong output device.
That and I see no real reason to copy the encrypted hdd partition anyway since you wouldnt be able to mess with it at all unless you cloned the entire drive AND knew its key, which I dont believe we have done anything with, so it'd be a waste to try. Also I am guilty of messing up with dd. Was uh, not good.
The way I entered the device name in the command line it will be all partitions on the hard drive, in other words the whole hard drive backed to file.
Hey guys! Just to give an update, a friend suggested that I perform a PS4 backup of my system as-is that way a copy of the game will always be on an external drive should I have any issue so I will be doing exactly this for the moment. Thank you for the help everyone, I'll try to think about this again when (if) it becomes easier to get files out of a retail system
Given that 4.50 in beta (if you got in) has some exploits available, it seems promising that 4.50 may have a chance, the issue then is will it be public because that's the reason it's been so quiet. Nobody is speaking about anything.
Maybe this isn't relevant to OP anymore, but I stumbled upon it and wanted to add for future reference. I have a bit of experience with the way the PS4 handles the "Backup" thingy. Mostly bad experience. I had to use it multiple times to create backups on PS3 and PS4 for warranty repairs and a recent switch to a PS4 Pro. I still advice to use this feature to create backups(!) since this will allow you to restore them to a different console in case your console will die. The internal backup function will also create an backup containing accounts (!), savegames and all game data, in case this would matter. The one big downside however is that the backup will consist of many, big files that form one backup. I mean to say that a single error in any of this data potentially worth 100s of GB will render the complete backup invalid (at least for the PS4). Maybe there will be methods to read such defective / partial backups once the system is "opened", but for the moment I personally would just create multiple backups. Of course, there are different ways to go about this, but things you might want to consider since you will want to archive this data for a (potentially) long time: - create multiple backups - don't (but maybe ALSO) rely on a "backup of a backup". Let the PS4 create another backup itself. - preferably use different physical media - "offsite backup" in any way. of course, from there on you simply have data that needs protection and that is just another big topic all in itself...
IIRC Craptivision said that Destiny wouldn't be coming to PCs. Then again plenty of other people have said their games won't make it to other consoles/systems *cough cough Shinji Mikami*
Then they're talking out of their asses, because you can preorder "the next Destiny" (i.e. 2) on bnet right now, to be released on the 24th.
I meant the first one, buy I did notice that the second one will be on the PC. Smart move. I wasn't sure why the didn't do that with the first one. Probably some deal with Microsoft and Sony.
