(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); My OFW recently shit its pants and i want to salvage the hdd because its 500gb and my cfw is only 40 so can i swap it out or am i gonna have some issues like losing my cfw and bricking ?

You will lose games, homebrew, but not your cfw.

1. Insert the 40gb hdd
2. Boot ps3 into recovery
3. Select option "restore ps3 system"
This will format the 40gb hdd to the ps3.
You will be brought to a black screen asking for the last syscall(last firmware you had installed)
4. reinstall your cfw
Done

install any homebrew/games

You can swap out the HDD without a problem. If you like to keep what ever is on the CFW, then back it up. Install the new HDD and update it with the same CFW that is already installed on your console. Then you can do a restore from your 40GB HDD.

not sure if this helps... here's a example.

im assuming i should be on cex then?

Doesn't matter what CFW your on as long as you update with the same FW it originally was before the swap.

Thanks alot mate!

Question answered. Moved to Answered Questions.