Friday, July 11, 2008

PS3 Firmware MD5 Checksum

It been a while since my ps3's firmware got itself an update. Can't help it really, especially with the recent v2.40 firmware problem I won't risk another chance of bricking mine (although it was reported only very "little" individuals were affected). Sony quickly pulled v2.40 down and promised to address the problem asap, and boy it was fast! Those affected are probably still busy with sony service center - and yet v2.41 has been released and they can't use it!

Meanwhile (yeah...) I decided on doing the leap of faith and updated to v2.41 firmware. To make it short, besides the wait everything else went smoothly.

Since mine is a playstation asia, specifically singapore, I downloaded the firmware from here
http://asia.playstation.com/hk/ps3/eng/ps3_softupdate.htm
using the 'Update using a PC' method.

Once downloaded, I verified the download's md5 checksum hash. You can find the md5 checksum hash from the firmware's download link, for your convenience the bolded characters such as below

http://dsa01.ps3.update.playstation.net/update/ps3/image/sa/2008_0708_67c660325b0b97acdeda6c0913dc1f74/PS3UPDAT.PUP

If you have no idea what a md5 checksum hash is and how to do it, you'll need to download the proper tools. There are many alternatives but I'll recommend digestIT 2004 since it is easy to install, integrates itself with windows explorer, and is very easy to use - and that is the point. Once installed find the freshly downloaded firmware (PS3UPDAT.PUP), right-click on it, choose digestIT 2004 and then choose Verify MD5 Hash. You'll be prompted for the md5 hash, just key it in like below




If the checksum fails, the firmware is corrupted and has to be redownloaded. Otherwise it is a verified copy, and is safe for use to update the ps3. Put it in a thumbdrive inside PS3\UPDATE folder (you might want to do the checksum again in case your thumbdrive has 'bad sectors') , plug it to the ps3, and finally 'Update via Storage Media'.

Now be grateful you paid your electricity bill, if they decide to cut you off power during this time, your ps3 is toast!

Friday, May 30, 2008

Hard Disk Death

It happened when I least expected.

I just got back from half a month holiday only to discover my current data stronghold dead. Oh the horror! 250GB worth of "my precious" lost - not a single bit spared. The lost videos and animes will not be mourned, however the FLACs, pictures, documents, mp3s, and all of my work will be missed.

I've had quite a few hard drive tragedies, but for the most time I am usually around whenever a backup is necessary, so their death were not disastrous. But today (perhaps a few days back) this one died and no backup. Son of a b*tch!

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Wow... this so called blog is quick transforming into a rant and bad news board. Hearing yourself whining on past frustation is somewhat funny yet interesting - however bad they were. Time will pass, I will get over this, and then I will probably reading this with a smirk. But today, at this time and moment... what a terrible home coming.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Hacked!

Damn it!

The only phpBB2 forum I have was hacked... badly! The site has to be taken down and wiped real clean. That's it, no more free open source content management system for me, I'll be using self-made cms from now on. It may not have certain features but at least I'll have complete understanding of its core.

On the bright side, nothing much was lost. After all the forum was just rather inactive with a bunch of bots as early members.