Ps3news.com recently purchased a new Playstation 3 to find out that the newer modelshad one single 56-pin flash chip and was 128mb in size. The older PS3’s have 2×256mb 48-pin chips.
To our surprise, he was unable to dump more than 16MB of it! At first, we believed that the other blocks in the flash were protected via password, however there was something else brewing.
He took the 16MB dump that was made and flashed it onto a completly blank chip, and reinstalled it in the PS3.
To our surprise, it worked!
Now, if you recall, newer version PS3 Firmwares have asked for a PUP file after formatting/inserting a larger HDD – This may be why! After flashing back just the 16MB of data, it also asked for a PUP file. So, the PUP was given, it installed the missing files fine, and then booted.
Basically, the system is now storing the majority of the flash contents on the hard disk drive, away from prying eyes. Even on a PS3 TEST console, the areas where the files would be are protected, so they can not be accessed.
This was also true when we wiped the 80GB’s HDD, it again asked for the PUP. So, it would seem that the base system is now stored on the flash, and all of the SPRX’s, XMB files, and other data is now fully stored on the HDD.
Was it cheaper to replace the flash with a smaller one? Or was it simply a security decision?
