PS3 HD Swap.

[#1]

I have a PS3 and the grandson stayed last night and brought his copy of GT6 to play.
It wouldn't work on mine because it needed a huge update (size unknown) and it told me I didn't have enough space on my drive (it is a 120GB drive with 9GB of available space).
So in response to this and space needs in general I have ordered a 500GB replacement.
I have read a number of procedures on various sites regarding a drive replacement and none so far have given me the confidence that I won't be losing some data.
Has anyone done this swap to their satisfaction? If so I would be interested to hear about it.

[#2]

I've swapped mine without issue, backed up the data onto another drive through the UI whacked in the new one and restored.

[#3]

I repaired the one I got given, put it under the stairs a year ago and not turned it back on since 
I really must get back into playing games again sometime 

[#4]

Thanks guys.

[#5]

Just be careful with the blue screw. It's made of plasticine... Apart from that it's all very easy.

[#6]

Yes I've read about the soft screws involved but I have a 4" angle grinder handy in case of problems

[#7]

I have the original fat ps3.. my screws weren't fragile

[#8]

One of the PS3 models has a case screw that is shorter than the rest - if you put the longer screw in the hole it will mess up the PCB inside the unit.

[#9]

Thanks for the tip DomS

[#10]

I'm just finishing off the HD replacement by restoring my backup, a 3 hour task.
The swap-over took longer that expected due to the lack of a crucial piece of information.
I downloaded the latest firmware and put it on a USB stick as per various sites' guidelines.
The process failed, I placed the file on a CD, it failed.
Then I found a site which blew the cobwebs off an old memory.
The PUP file doesn't go on the USB stick, it goes in a folder called UPDATE within a folder called PS3 on a USB stick.
When I did this everything worked fine, the HD was formatted and installation was completed.

PS I have since found a reference the folders on a Playstation site page after a bit of digging.