Bought myself a brand new 80gb PS3 and decided to put a bigger hard drive in it...

Now when I put the new HDD in the PS3, Its telling me I need to insert some media that has Software version 2.52 or later on it..

So... I downloaded the .pup file for update version 2.52 and put it on to my Memory stick thing...

Plugged my memory stick into the PS3 to try and get the update to work. I press "Start and Select" as it asks me to. It tells me its searching, then comes up telling me it can't find any media with Version 2.52 or later on it...

Anyone know how to get a blank hard drive to work on a PS3, cos its NOWHERE NEAR as easy as all the videos on youtube tell people it is...

Spent 4 hours last night using different memory sticks, different portable hard drives trying to get the machine to accept this update file to format the new drive with and got absolutely nowhere...

Any Ideas as I'm at the end of my teather with it. 

 sorry cant help but am interested if its not as easy as it seems... thought you litterally swap over and the ps3 does the rest.

Unfortunately not...

You have to download the update file from the UK Playstation website and put that on a memory stick.

The major flaw that I hit was that I only have Mac computers at home, and for some reason when you download a .PUP file using Firefox or Safari on Mac OSX it spoils the file so that its not usable.

Ended up borrowing a laptop from work to put the file on the memory stick and got it sorted within 20 minutes of getting home from work tonight :)

also this link helped out a fair bit too: CodeRetard.com

 was it easy backing up save files on the old HDD?

Yeah to back up your old save files is really easy.

Whilst your old hard drive is still in, Plug in a Portable hard drive , then go to:
Settings ----> System Settings ----> Backup Utility ----> Backup

It'll then ask if you want to create a backup on your Portable hard drive.
Select Yes, It'll then backup all your music / game save files etc.

It'll then tell you its done, Switch off the system and swap over your Hard Drives.

Once your new hard drive is in, plug your Portable Hard Drive back in, go back to the Backup Utility menu and select restore.

Job done :-)

 For the update to work you have to put the .pup file in to a folder

So on your data stick, you have to have a folder called PS3 then inside that one you have to have another folder called UPDATE then you put your .pup file in the the UPDATE folder.

ROOT - PS3 - UPDATE - 2.52.pup

Now you can update with no probs.

Also depending on what saves you have not all of them will back up. Need for speed carbon for example.

 just have pes and cod to back up, what about my downloaded games such as tekken 5 and cod 4 maps?

 just go into ps store,view my downloads and download them again mate

 ahhh cool