Beginner
Intermediate
AdvancedI have a stack of old PS2 games that I started and never finished. I can play the games on my PS3 but what’s the point when I’ll lose all my previous progress? Fortunately, it’s possible to transfer the old game saves from my PS2′s memory card onto the PS3′s hard drive!
Prerequisites
There is no PS2 memory card slot in the PS3 so will need a Memory Card Adaptor. Sony make an official adapter but there are also a number of cheaper alternatives. Buy one online:
- Official Sony PS3 Memory Card Adapter (recommended)
- Data Bank Convertor – odd name but does the right thing
- Try eBay
Steps
- Plug your PS2 memory card into the adaptor
- Plug the adaptor into a free USB port on your PS3
- Go to the “Game” menu in the XMB and choose “Memory Card Utility (PS/PS2)”
- If the adaptor is working you should see an item called “Memory Card (PS2)”. Below the title should be the size of the card and how much is in use–in my case “1334 KB / 7998 KB”
- Press the controller’s Triange button to get the Memory Card options. Select “Copy”
- Select “Yes” to confirm the copy from memory card to the hard drive
- Enter a name for the new Internal Memory Card that will be created on the hard drive, or leave the default name. I named mine “Original PS2 saves”. Select “OK”
- The data will be copied. If the amount of saved data is too large, the system will automatically create multiple internal memory cards
- You may be informed that the new internal card has been assigned to a “slot”. These slots are an emulation of the physical memory card slots in the PS2, so similarly you may only have two internal/virtual cards “plugged in” (assigned) at a time. The internal memory card must be assigned to slot 1 or 2 to be available when you run PS2 games
- The new internal memory card should now be showing in the XMB, under Game > Memory Card Utility
- Selecting the card will allow you to browse the game saves that were copied across!
After my PS2′s card contents had copied to the internal memory card, I was informed that the copy had completed. Interestingly, there was also this message: Copy-protected saved data was not copied. I didn’t notice any of my game saves missing, so is this a general warning? We’d like to hear your experiences.
Copying from PS3 back to PS2 memory card
The Memory Card Adaptor is now available as a destination when copying game saves off Internal Memory Cards–so you can copy off the PS3 back to your PS1/PS2 card.
Some adapters (like no-name brands) do not correctly write to the PS2 memory cards and will corrupt data. A reader has confirmed that the official Sony adapter reads and writes to the PS2 card correctly (see comments below).
Thanks, Scott. When I checked where you said it should be, it was there. I was looking in the wrong place. I got all my PS1 transfered and some of the PS2 stuff transfered. The rest is on memory cards that weren’t made by Sony. That sadly, won’t transfer.
Hey, glad to hear that you got some of your data. Well, you can get the rest if you have a PS2 – just put the non-sony cards in the PS2, copy the saves over to the sony cards, and then pull the saves off of the sony cards on your PS3. It might take a few iterations if the non-sony cards are bigger than the sony cards, but slow is better than not at all, right?
How the heck do you open the memory card slot no one will tell me >=/
Inferno: Which slot? The one in the adapter? You just push the memory card into it and the flap/cover folds inside.
How do you copy the saves over to the sony cards?
How do you transfer data from one memory card to another through your PS2?
This is VERY helpful information and answers my questions about my concerns with the PS3 and it’s saving ability (hard drive). THANK YOU!!!
Question: Is there a way to do it the other way around? Take PS2 files from a PS3 and put it on a PS2 memory card?
Twelve Units Shy: It’s mentioned in this article, under the “Copying from PS3 back to PS2 memory card” heading.
Thanks Flame. Somehow I didn’t see that one.
Just picked up the adapter and having a hard time transferring data. I’ve got at least two PS2 and a PS1 card to transfer. Thanks for the info I’ll try it when I get home.
Okay, I’ve got a new one for ya- Will the official memory card work with off-brand PS1 memory cards? I’ve got an old no-name PS1 card and a Max Memory 32MB card that has all my PS2 saves. Luckily I have a Sony 8MB card that’s blank, so I know I’ll have to use that to transfer PS2 saves to the PS3. But I was wondering about the PS1 card…will it work? Also, about how many saves can you put on your PS3? Will my PS2 saves (probably about 16MBs used on the 32), and the PS1 both fit, no problem? I’d like to just easily designate virtual slot 1 for PS1 saves, and slot 2 for PS2 saves. This possible? I haven’t bought my memory card adapter yet. Lookin’ for a good deal. Anyone here done with theirs and mind reselling it?
Cheers and thanks in advance,
Chris
Okay, I found a good deal on a official Sony adapter on eBay. Waiting for it in the mail. I thought about it and it makes sense to me that the virtual slots can have as much memory as your HDD allows you to. So guess that’s no longer a question. Still wondering about my PS1 memory card, whether it’ll work or not. I’d really hate to lose all my saved games. I love going back and playing which ever Crash Bandicoot level I want, lol.
Cheers,
Chris
This works for all of my PS1 games, but when I copy any PS2 data over to the PS3′s hard disk, the games never recognize it. I can see that the data is on the PS3′s hard disk, but it’s never recognized in-game. Any suggestions? The data came from a Sony memory card, so I don’t see where there should be any problems.
Cynthia,
Are you assigning the virtual memory card to Slot 1 when playing a game? You need to have the correct card assigned to Slot 1.
As for my own problem, I figured it out. Had to buy an official PS1 card to get my saves.
Okay, then. How about this? My PS3 exploded, but I managed to save the hard drive with PS2 and PS1 game saves on it. If I put that hard drive into another PS3 that’s not backwards compatible, will I be able to snatch my PS1 and PS2 saved games off if the hard drive and put them onto PS1 and PS2 memory cards? (I hope that wasn’t too confusing….)
@Vanning:
That’s a good question. I have wondered the same thing myself MANY times. Which is why I bought a new PS2 and have made sure to keep my physical memory cards in sync with the virtual memory cards on the hard disk on the PS3. I guess I’m paranoid, but I had to send the PS3 in for repairs two months after I got it for a blu-ray drive replacement.
If anyone has an answer for Vanning’s question, I would appreciate knowing as well.
I transfered a downloaded psv (Final Fantasy IX) to the ps2 memory card via the ps3 (File worked fine on ps3). when i transfered it to the ps2 memory card and tried to play it on my ps2 it would not work. plz email me any suggestions?
Hey I am new to this ,But found this very useful.I will Subscribe your feeds.
My ps1 memory card, when I use it, on the menu to select copy data the word “copy” isn’t highlighted like it should be in order for me to copy the data to my hard drive in the ps3!!!??? Please can someone bash out this bloody crease for me it’s really starting to F!#k me off now!! TA!!
please help!!!
I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 2 on the Origins disc on the PS3. My game has been freezing as I exit Kas’ion. Many are having this issue with the game.
I am trying to save the file from my PS3 to a ps2 memory card using the adaptor. The save to the memory card has been successful(I can see the game icon in the card when I open the settings) but I cannot load my saved game to the ps2.
Any suggestions?
I bought a snakebyte memory card adapter recently and it doesnt seem to be reading my PS2 memory card. Wanted to transfer all my saves to the PS3… Its backwards compatible so cant think of any reason why it wouldn’t read my PS2 memory card?!? Any ideas? Any way to upload them on the PC via USB and then transferring it through SD memory card?!?
Thx i was borrowing a friends adaptor but it was a third-party one n tried 2 transfer my data back, it corrupted it and now gave me 63 kb out of the 8 mb it should have given me for deleting everything, i now know that the official adapter is much better, but would the official adaptor also corrupt data from a 3rd-party memory card?
Hey, I’m thinking about buying the new 160gb PS3, but i have a few PS3 saved games on my console that i wish to keep. I was wondering if its possible to copy my PS3 saved games onto my PS2 memory card then transfer them back onto my new PS3 or am i going to have to get a USB flash drive and do it that way?
Bobby-oh!,
I’m not entirely sure how it works, and I suggest that you find a way to get the article yourself and take a look at it. But I was reading something in this month’s Official Playstation Magazine about how you could upgrade your PS3 hard drive. Now it said something about some place on the PS Network where you can upload all the information from your old hard drive and put it there temporarily, then you can install and format your new hard drive, then move the information back onto that one. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for moving info from an old PS3 to a new one. Then again, I’m no technical genius. Maybe someone else knows more about it than I do.
Unfortunately, The Official Playstation mag is telling porkies.
If you’re swapping harddrives, you’ll need an external USB drive in FAT32 format to backup your game/movie/music/picture data.
The PSN store keeps a download list of games/add ons you have downloaded/purchased before and these CAN be redownloaded. So if your backup drive isn’t big enough, you can delete all your games from the PS3 before backup.
Trophy data is synched to the PSN so will be available whenever you sign back into the PSN.
I was wandering could the official sony memory card adaptor transfer files from a Max Memory 32MB PS2 memory card?
Hi raze – yes it should allow you to copy off the card. The PS3′s Internal Memory Cards are only 8MB though so you may need to create a few internal cards.
I Bought a Memory card adapter & yes it’s the official sony memory card adapter & I have a third party memory card & I can’t get my ps3 to recognize the memory card at all. I’m on the second memory card adapter and still nothing. any ideas or any help would be most appreciated
i hope this helps you raze & alot of confused people out there,
in order to import your old data from ps2/ps1 memry cards to a ps3, you must first buy a mem.card adaptor which plugs into the ps3 via usb port (I only recommend getting the offical sony licensed one since the others cause data conversion problems).If your ps1/ps2 mem.card is sony officaly licensed, you should have no problems downloading your ps1/ps2 saved data onto your PS3 via mem.card adaptor. Now heres where it gets tricky, if your ps2/ps1 mem.card is aftermarket, you need to 1st buy a officly licensed sony ps2 mem card (I found good deals on e-bay), then use a ps2 system (hopefuly you have one or can borow one) to transfer your data from your aftermarked mem.cards to your officially licensed one. after this is done, now your ready to transfer all your old ps1/ps2 saved data onto your ps3 via mem.card adaptor. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND this procedure was tested to be working on a backwards compadable 60g PS3 model. I don’t know about the new models that came out.
I hope this helps & answers alot of questions about this confusing procedure.
Good info. Thanks, bobby.
Besides Ebay, I called a couple of local pawn shops and got a PS2 8MB card for $5 and a PS2 system for $45 (talked them down haha). It IS a bit of added investment. But hey, what’s life worth without games, right? HaHa!
I was able to copy my files onto my PS3 from my PS2 memory card but when I tried to put a ps2 game in it didn’t show up on the ps3? did this happen to anyone?? help pleaseee!
You first have to make sure your ps3 is backwards compatible with ps1/2 games and if it is the ps1/2 game should show up and use the virtual memory card on the ps3, but if it isn’t the ps1/2 game wont show up at all. I hope this helps you vicki
aww it’s not compatible but thanks anyways raze. =)
Once you have the ps2 game transferred over to the ps3 don’t you have to put the physical game in the ps3 to continue forward?
Is it possible to daisy chain my PS2 to my PS3 via a USB cable and download the memory card info that way?
About copying, want to be sure about this, when I copy, would I be making a copy, or just transfer it? I would prefer a copy case something goes wrong on my PS3
i have a complete game save , how do i copy it to the hd or pen drive does it have to be a sony pen drive …thanks
i want to know about make change memory card PS2 8mb to 16mb or higher, but i can’t find a software….please tell me solutions…
HELP!!!
I had just transferred everything from my 8mb ps2 memory card (made from Sony) to my 80gb (reverse compatible) ps3 using the Sony ps3 ps2 memory card adapter. NOW when I put in my game say GOD OF WAR and load my game it claims “No memory card present in slot 1, please insert.” which doesn’t make sense to me
please help!!!
Did you assign the Memory Card on the PS3 to slot 1?
will this adpater work on PC?
Will anything happen to my Physical Memory Card after the data has been Copied/transfered? I’m skeptical because Someone told me that It couldn’t be used on a PS2 ever again after that was done.
Hi Keso_R – if you are just copying off the PS2 memory card then there should be no problem at all.
If you check the article above we mention potential problems if you use the adapter to try to delete or write to the PS2 card.