WillowTree does not recreate all the PS3 files, it only creates the SAV file. In order to convert a PC savegame to PS3 and have it work you need to get those other files. To do so you want to create a new character using your chosen profile on the PS3:
1) Turn on your PS3.
2) Log in to your user profile.
3) Start Borderlands on your PS3.
4) Start a new single player game. PIck any class. It doesn't matter.
5) Walk to the first New-U station, listen to the robot speak. Once you see the icon that pops up when the game is saving your new character has been saved and you can exit out.
6) Exit out of Borderlands and go to the system's Saved Data Utility (PS3) in the PS3's system menus. Copy the Borderlands saved data to a USB memory stick.
Now you have a PS3 memory stick with all your profile information and in there somewhere is your empty savegame. You need to find out where your new savegame is and figure out which save slot it uses because if you don't set the savegame slot correctly you can corrupt another one of your saves when you save later while playing the game. To do this:
1) Plug the USB memory stick into your computer's USB port. Wait until Windows recognizes it. You should see some icon pop up in the system tray in the lower right corner of the screen.
2) Open 'My Computer' and look for the Borderlands game data folder on the USB memory stick. First change to the PS3 folder.
3) Find your new PS3 character's save file on the memory stick and load it into WillowTree. It is on the USB stick in a folder that is usually named one of the following: PS3\BLES00697-SAVE-SAVExxxx or PS3\BLUS30386-SAVE-SAVExxxx, but there may be other possible names if there have been new releases of Borderlands. If the folder is PS3\BLJM60279-SAVE=SAVExxxx then you are using a Japanese version of the game and WillowTree will not work. Japanese releases use some kind of compression and encryption technology which WT# does not understand, If you need to locate it manually and the name isn't one of these the folder generally contains these files: ICON0.PNG, PARAM.PFD, PARAM.SFO, PIC1.PNG, and SAVExxxx.SAV. The SAVExxxx.SAV file is the one you need to open with WillowTree.
4) ****MAKE SURE THE SAVEGAME YOU FOUND IS THE NEW ONE YOU JUST CREATED*** by loading it in WillowTree#. You may mess up a character you wanted to keep if there's more than one save folder because you have multiple characters and you overwrite the SAV file in the wrong one. Examine the name and level of the character and make sure the character only has the starting weapon so you are confident it is a new character. When you are confident you have found the right savegame file write down the name/number of it because you need it for the next step.
5) Open your PC's 'My Documents" folder and navigate to the Borderlands savegame folder. Usually this is in My Games\borderlands\SaveData. Figure out which character in there is the one you wanted to copy to the PS3 by loading them (SAVExxxx,SAV) in WillowTree until you locate the right one.
6) Make a backup of the PC character you are about to edit just in case you mess something up. Just right click in the Borderlands savegame folder and make a new folder. Rename the folder to 'backups' or whatever else you may like, but do not call it 'save' or you will run into a bug in WillowTree#. Right click the SAVExxxx.SAV file and choose copy. Double-click the backups folder, then right click in an empty space spot and select paste.
Now you should know the name and save slot of your PS3 savegame and the name of the PC savegame. You have a backup in case you experience any problems. It is time to make your PC savegame into a PS3 savegame. To do that:
1) Open the PC savegame in WillowTree#
2) Set the savegame format to PS3 by left clicking on the tree in upper left corner and choosing Change Save Format->PS3.
3) Change the save slot to the slot that your new PS3 character file had. ****THIS STEP IS CRITICAL! FAILING TO DO IT CAN CAUSE YOUR OTHER SAVEGAME TO BE OVERWRITTEN WHEN BORDERLANDS TRIES TO SAVE YOUR GAME LATER**** For instance, if your PS3 save file is called SAVE0003.SAV then it uses the 3rd save slot, so you need to click on the 'General Info' tab in WillowTree and change 'Save Number' to 3. Note that the 'Save Number' in WillowTree is in decimal but the one in the file name is hexadecimal, so if your save is called SAVE001D for instance then the Save Number would have to be 30 since 1D in hexadecimal is 30 in decimal. Use the windows calculator (Start->Run->Calc) to convert if you have a save with a number greater than 0009 and you need help converting.
4) The savegame has all the changes you need in the memory now. Left click the tree in WillowTree and select Save As (not save since that will overwrite your PC savegame. If you do that on accident then you have discovered what you made the backup file for) then save it over top of the new PS3 character's save file on the USB stick.
Now you need to copy the save data from the USB stick back to the PS3:
1) Go to the system's Saved Data Utility (PS3) in the PS3's system menu..
2) Copy the files from the USB stick to the PS3. It will ask if it is ok to overwrite it and you tell it yes.
Your character is moved over to the PS3 now and you should be able to start up Borderlands and load it. Moving a savegame back to the PC from the PS3 is pretty much the same only you need to make the savegame slot and the savegame name the same as the one on the PC and use Save As over your PC file. You create a new character in the same way in order to make sure you have an unused save slot that is different from your existing saves, then adjust the format of the save to PC, change the save slot and file name as needed to match the PC file, then overwrite the PC save. Always make backups of your characters in case something goes wrong.
If you changed a savegame and you click on the Save button (but not Save As) WillowTree# will automatically rename the old copy of the savegame to SAVExxxx.BAK1 before it overwrites it so you may be able to recover it by renaming the backup to the original file name. It will keep the last ten versions of the file as SAVExxxx.SAV.BAK1 through SAVExxxx.SAV.BAK10.
This may enable people to recover if they discover a problem with a savegame they have edited, but I would still recommend making your own backup in case you use Save As and save over a savegame on accident. When you are sure that your save is working and has no problems then you can delete the BAK files if you want but its still a good idea to keep some old versions of your characters stored somewhere just in case you have any reason to want to go back later.
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PS3 seems to be broken. It's no longer copying the final file from USB back to the PS3. The date/time is different, as well as the filesize of the newly modded file, so its easy to tell PS3 isn't copying properly…. not sure what to do next… any ideas?
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You are going to have to explain better what the problem is. It should be expected that if you modify a savegame that the date/time will change. WillowTree# makes no attempt to preserve the original date/time stamp on the file.
Since you didn't fully explain the problem I'm not really sure what the issue is. I'm guessing the problem is that either your PS3 or your USB stick doesn't have enough free space to copy the file.
If you are editing savegames directly on the USB stick and not copying them to your PC first then you must be aware that WillowTree# tries to make a backup file every time you use the Save button, so you will end up with a lot of *.BAK files on your USB stick and maybe even on your PS3 when you copy the saved game data to the PS3. if your USB stick becomes full then there will be issues and in fact WT# might actually delete your old savegame then fail to save the new one because you don't have the free space and so you will end up with no savegame at all. It will make no BAK files if you use the Save As button.
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I think my PSN Plus was the problem. I had online storage turned on, so it was probably trying to access online savegame files instead of the one I was manually putting on my PS3. Problem solved.
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Can anyone tell me if it is possible to copy a PC save game file to a PS3 and if so can anyone provide any tips on doing so?
WillowTree does not recreate all the PS3 files, it only creates the SAV file. In order to convert a PC savegame to PS3 and have it work you need to get those other files. To do so you want to create a new character using your chosen profile on the PS3:
1) Turn on your PS3.
2) Log in to your user profile.
3) Start Borderlands on your PS3.
4) Start a new single player game. PIck any class. It doesn't matter.
5) Walk to the first New-U station, listen to the robot speak. Once you see the icon that pops up when the game is saving your new character has been saved and you can exit out.
6) Exit out of Borderlands and go to the system's Saved Data Utility (PS3) in the PS3's system menus. Copy the Borderlands saved data to a USB memory stick.
Now you have a PS3 memory stick with all your profile information and in there somewhere is your empty savegame. You need to find out where your new savegame is and figure out which save slot it uses because if you don't set the savegame slot correctly you can corrupt another one of your saves when you save later while playing the game. To do this:
1) Plug the USB memory stick into your computer's USB port. Wait until Windows recognizes it. You should see some icon pop up in the system tray in the lower right corner of the screen.
2) Open 'My Computer' and look for the Borderlands game data folder on the USB memory stick. First change to the PS3 folder.
3) Find your new PS3 character's save file on the memory stick and load it into WillowTree. It is on the USB stick in a folder that is usually named one of the following: PS3\BLES00697-SAVE-SAVExxxx or PS3\BLUS30386-SAVE-SAVExxxx, but there may be other possible names if there have been new releases of Borderlands. If the folder is PS3\BLJM60279-SAVE=SAVExxxx then you are using a Japanese version of the game and WillowTree will not work. Japanese releases use some kind of compression and encryption technology which WT# does not understand, If you need to locate it manually and the name isn't one of these the folder generally contains these files: ICON0.PNG, PARAM.PFD, PARAM.SFO, PIC1.PNG, and SAVExxxx.SAV. The SAVExxxx.SAV file is the one you need to open with WillowTree.
4) ****MAKE SURE THE SAVEGAME YOU FOUND IS THE NEW ONE YOU JUST CREATED*** by loading it in WillowTree#. You may mess up a character you wanted to keep if there's more than one save folder because you have multiple characters and you overwrite the SAV file in the wrong one. Examine the name and level of the character and make sure the character only has the starting weapon so you are confident it is a new character. When you are confident you have found the right savegame file write down the name/number of it because you need it for the next step.
5) Open your PC's 'My Documents" folder and navigate to the Borderlands savegame folder. Usually this is in My Games\borderlands\SaveData. Figure out which character in there is the one you wanted to copy to the PS3 by loading them (SAVExxxx,SAV) in WillowTree until you locate the right one.
6) Make a backup of the PC character you are about to edit just in case you mess something up. Just right click in the Borderlands savegame folder and make a new folder. Rename the folder to 'backups' or whatever else you may like, but do not call it 'save' or you will run into a bug in WillowTree#. Right click the SAVExxxx.SAV file and choose copy. Double-click the backups folder, then right click in an empty space spot and select paste.
Now you should know the name and save slot of your PS3 savegame and the name of the PC savegame. You have a backup in case you experience any problems. It is time to make your PC savegame into a PS3 savegame. To do that:
1) Open the PC savegame in WillowTree#
2) Set the savegame format to PS3 by left clicking on the tree in upper left corner and choosing Change Save Format->PS3.
3) Change the save slot to the slot that your new PS3 character file had. ****THIS STEP IS CRITICAL! FAILING TO DO IT CAN CAUSE YOUR OTHER SAVEGAME TO BE OVERWRITTEN WHEN BORDERLANDS TRIES TO SAVE YOUR GAME LATER**** For instance, if your PS3 save file is called SAVE0003.SAV then it uses the 3rd save slot, so you need to click on the 'General Info' tab in WillowTree and change 'Save Number' to 3. Note that the 'Save Number' in WillowTree is in decimal but the one in the file name is hexadecimal, so if your save is called SAVE001D for instance then the Save Number would have to be 30 since 1D in hexadecimal is 30 in decimal. Use the windows calculator (Start->Run->Calc) to convert if you have a save with a number greater than 0009 and you need help converting.
4) The savegame has all the changes you need in the memory now. Left click the tree in WillowTree and select Save As (not save since that will overwrite your PC savegame. If you do that on accident then you have discovered what you made the backup file for) then save it over top of the new PS3 character's save file on the USB stick.
Now you need to copy the save data from the USB stick back to the PS3:
1) Go to the system's Saved Data Utility (PS3) in the PS3's system menu..
2) Copy the files from the USB stick to the PS3. It will ask if it is ok to overwrite it and you tell it yes.
Your character is moved over to the PS3 now and you should be able to start up Borderlands and load it. Moving a savegame back to the PC from the PS3 is pretty much the same only you need to make the savegame slot and the savegame name the same as the one on the PC and use Save As over your PC file. You create a new character in the same way in order to make sure you have an unused save slot that is different from your existing saves, then adjust the format of the save to PC, change the save slot and file name as needed to match the PC file, then overwrite the PC save. Always make backups of your characters in case something goes wrong.
If you changed a savegame and you click on the Save button (but not Save As) WillowTree# will automatically rename the old copy of the savegame to SAVExxxx.BAK1 before it overwrites it so you may be able to recover it by renaming the backup to the original file name. It will keep the last ten versions of the file as SAVExxxx.SAV.BAK1 through SAVExxxx.SAV.BAK10.
This may enable people to recover if they discover a problem with a savegame they have edited, but I would still recommend making your own backup in case you use Save As and save over a savegame on accident. When you are sure that your save is working and has no problems then you can delete the BAK files if you want but its still a good idea to keep some old versions of your characters stored somewhere just in case you have any reason to want to go back later.
Thanks Matt.
I'm not sure why but somehow i must have downloaded one of the older releases of WillowTree as it did not have the change format option.
I've since installed the latest version and am waiting to go visit my friend with the PS3 to give it a go.
PS3 seems to be broken. It's no longer copying the final file from USB back to the PS3. The date/time is different, as well as the filesize of the newly modded file, so its easy to tell PS3 isn't copying properly…. not sure what to do next… any ideas?
You are going to have to explain better what the problem is. It should be expected that if you modify a savegame that the date/time will change. WillowTree# makes no attempt to preserve the original date/time stamp on the file.
Since you didn't fully explain the problem I'm not really sure what the issue is. I'm guessing the problem is that either your PS3 or your USB stick doesn't have enough free space to copy the file.
If you are editing savegames directly on the USB stick and not copying them to your PC first then you must be aware that WillowTree# tries to make a backup file every time you use the Save button, so you will end up with a lot of *.BAK files on your USB stick and maybe even on your PS3 when you copy the saved game data to the PS3. if your USB stick becomes full then there will be issues and in fact WT# might actually delete your old savegame then fail to save the new one because you don't have the free space and so you will end up with no savegame at all. It will make no BAK files if you use the Save As button.
I think my PSN Plus was the problem. I had online storage turned on, so it was probably trying to access online savegame files instead of the one I was manually putting on my PS3. Problem solved.