1-Turn off the PS3 and unplug all cables from the front and back.Place the PS3 on a soft dry cloth with the vent side facing down.
2-Remove the Hard Drive cover, from the side facing up towards you, by lifting it from the side closest to the back. You should be able to remove this cover with your hands, but if not you can use a small flat head screwdriver to gently pry it off, on some units there is also a blue screw on the bottom of the unit failure to remove this bottom screw will result in breaking the drive cover.
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4-Remove the blue screw that holds the Hard Drive in place with the small Phillips screwdriver
5-Lift the small handle provided and pull the entire assembly towards the back of the machine. You should now be able to lift the Hard Drive out.
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6-Remove the the two screws on either side of the mounting bracket with the small Phillips screwdriver. The old Hard Drive should now come away from the bracket.
7-Attach your new Hard Drive to the bracket using the same screws you just removed ensuring that the new Hard Drive is in the same position as the old one was.
8-Put the entire Hard Drive assembly back into the slot in the PS3 and slide it towards the front. It should slide in smoothly and stop when the screw hole for the blue screw on the mounting bracket lines up with the one on the PS3. If this is not the case then the Hard Drive was not mounted properly or is not the proper size.
9-Screw the blue screw back in and replace the cover.Get the firmware. Before you plug your PS3 back in and format the new Hard Drive you should go to the Sony Playstation website and download the firmware, for your model, that is required for your newly installed Hard Drive to work properly. You should put this on your USB flash drive and ensure that you follow the designated file tree mentioned on the Sony website: PS3->Update. You could also burn this data onto a CD-R or a DVD-R.
10-Plug your PS3 back in, with the USB flash drive in one of the USB slots, and follow the instructions to install the new firmware.