PS2 IDE Hard Drive Problems

Edit: Got the heat under control but now have another issue.

OK so its a 400 GB hard drive. I'm using WinHIP to install my ISOs. At around the 200GB mark the HDD wont install anymore games. I kept trying and eventually I tried a small game and it installed no problem.

So I tinker around and delete some games and then I notice the fragmentation jumps up. I add games and it goes back down till it gets to zero and then the hard drive thinks its full again (even though my capacity reeds 200 gb free)

Any ideas on what I can do about this?

Make sure it's on a hard flat surface and not on carpet and make sure the vents are clear. If it's in a confined space, make sure there is at least 5" of clearance around it for airflow.

Xian Xi said:

Make sure it's on a hard flat surface and not on carpet and make sure the vents are clear. If it's in a confined space, make sure there is at least 5" of clearance around it for airflow.

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It's nothing obvious like that. I've got it in a wide open area. Its on top of a cooling pad right now with 2 fans directly lined up underneath it on full blast. That's keeping it from getting hot for the time being but I'm worried that it'll get hot again if I put it back in the PS2.

Did you clean out the inside of the console too? Many people don't understand just how much dust gets into modern consoles with the fans and all. Then when you pile summer heat on top of restricted cooling, yeah things get crappy quickly. Fans won't help if it's clogged.

It's not too hard, you pop off the cover and use some compressed air like you would when cleaning any other PC. That's how I keep all my consoles from overheating.

No I haven't cleaned out the PS2. I bought it online not too long ago so it could be dusty inside idk. That wouldn't explain the hard drive overheating while by itself though.

Oh, duh. Says right there USB adapter. Nope can't explain that. The PS2 is probably grimy though.

I wonder if its failing (which would be weird because like I said this is a brand new hard drive). I've been trying to transfer and rip ISOs since yesterday. What'll happen is it'll start off at a decent speed, then it'll start to trickle at around halfway then it stops. Then I get the error message "could not transfer file" or whatever. Even HD Loader on the PS2 is kinda wonky. Sometimes it boots fast and sometimes it takes a few minutes. Once its up and running it boots plays games no problem.

I don't get it.

Could this be a mechanical issue? Like maybe there's an obstruction that's keeping hard drive from functioning properly? I've never used an IDE and more so have never hooked it via USB and power supply. This is all new to me.

Ok got the heat under control but now I have other problems. OP updated.

How big is the game your trying to install? Larger than 4GB? Could be hitting the file size limit of the fat32 filesystem.

I use OPL and share my games from the network to avoid this.

A couple things.

If the drive is bad, it could stop letting you put stuff on there after a certain capacity. I have one like that which works fine up until it's about 50% full, put anything else on it, it goes to shit.

The other thing is fragmentation issues; PS2 isos are installed as their own partitons. If you remove any games ever, you can end up with huge fragmented partitions. It's best to completely wipe the drive and install all the games you want without ever deleting any. If you've removed any games and since installed any, I'd recommend trying that.

Niko49 said:

How big is the game your trying to install? Larger than 4GB? Could be hitting the file size limit of the fat32 filesystem.

I use OPL and share my games from the network to avoid this.

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FAT32 has nothing to do with it, at least on the PS2 side. Each game is installed as its own partition.

skate323k137 said:

A couple things.

If the drive is bad, it could stop letting you put stuff on there after a certain capacity. I have one like that which works fine up until it's about 50% full, put anything else on it, it goes to shit.

The other thing is fragmentation issues; PS2 isos are installed as their own partitons. If you remove any games ever, you can end up with huge fragmented partitions. It's best to completely wipe the drive and install all the games you want without ever deleting any. If you've removed any games and since installed any, I'd recommend trying that.

Click to expand...

Oh ok good to know. Definitely didn't know each ISO was its own partition. Will reformat and see how that works out.