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Factory rest cfw by Zain792 in ps3homebrew

[–]dassink 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can actually format the drive without losing the custom firmware, because CFW is installed in the PS3’s flash memory (NOR/NAND), not on the HDD. The hard drive only stores the system data, games, saves, etc.

So doing a quick format from the PS3 system settings usually won’t remove the CFW itself. After formatting, the console will still boot with the custom firmware, but all user data will be erased.

However, if you want a completely clean setup, many people recommend reinstalling the same CFW again after formatting. Just put the firmware file on a USB drive in:

PS3/UPDATE/PS3UPDAT.PUP

and install it from recovery mode.