Backup Utility error 80010038

[Scorpiio93]

I'm upgrading my 120GB hard drive to 1TB at some point this week, but I can't seem to backup via Backup Utility.

I've tried 4 times now and every time it reaches 53% with about 1 hour left it gives me the error message. I've backed up saves manually, to an external hard drive (500GB)  but I have other users on my PS3, and would rather back everything up at once in case I missed anything.

I've also deleted games I can download again, and music I can put back on, but that didn't seem to help.

 

Anyone know why I'm getting this or if there's anything else I can do before I end up doing it all manually? /:

Edited March 12, 2014 by Beeinhollywood

[Parker]

From a quick Google search..

 

http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-General/Error-The-Back-Up-Operation-Could-Not-Be-Completed-80010038/td-p/6193909

 

When I swapped a 1TB drive into my PS3 I just backed up my saves to the cloud and that was it because I've heard about many people having issues backing up their whole HDD. Unfortunately it seems like the bigger the HDD you're backing up, the more likely the chance this error will occur.

 

 

Parker

[A12]

I've never encountered any error's (not of my fault) when doing a full backup @ roughly 400GB.

Are you sure the drive you are backing up to is good? And the enclosure it's in? It's probably trying to write to bad sectors on the disc.

[Eternal21]

Sony backup utility, and associated useless error codes is some of the shittiest piece of software I've ever encountered.  Your error code is slightly different than mine, but chances are my solution from 4 years ago, may help you troubleshoot your problem.  Also - keep in mind, backing up your data is only half the battle - you're likely to hit more problems when trying to restore it, so keep your original drive untouched, until you are 100% sure the restore worked.  I would post the link to the original thread on Playstation forums, but Sony has changed them so many times, that the only version I can find is a cached one, so I'll just copy and paste it here:

 

EDIT:

Never mind - found the original thread:

http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-General/ps3-restore-problems/m-p/14353820#M262772

 

 

I had the same problem, and decided to post the solution in this thread, since it's the first result that pops up when you search for the error message 800283F0.  I hope it will help others who had the same problem.

 

Let me give you a little background of things I tried, that worked, and didn't work first.

 

Like many other's I was trying to upgrade my 80GB drive to 500GB drive.  The problem is I didn't want to lose my videos purchased from PS3 store, or copy-protected gamesaves.  I would backup all my data to external USB hard-drive using the backup utility.  It would take about 2 hours.  I would then install the new drive into PS3 and try to restore backed up data from the external USB drive.  The process would take another 2 hours, and when it said 100% complete.  The following message would appear:

 

"The restore operation could not be completed.  The system will restart. (800283F0)."

 

First of all - shame on Sony.  I expect much more from a company than a useless error message.  Would it be so hard to at least display file-name of the file that could not be restored?  Or better yet - give me a way to access a log of just what went wrong?  I just wasted 4 hours of my time, and had nothing to show for it.

 

Initially I figured the backup got corrupted somehow, so I tried it again.  After another 4 hours, I was staring at the same error message again.  I do not give up easily, so I tried again, this time with a different backup usb drive.  Same problem.  At that point, I started Googling for solutions, and came accross many people with the same problem.  Sadly, it didn't look like any of their suggestions applied to me (a lot of them made no sense either).  Some people suggested removing PSP, other people talked about resetting settings to default, deleting game saves etc.

 

I tried a number of those suggestions, and nothing helped.  I would always end up with the same error after 100% completion.  The system would restart, and only a handful of things would be actually backed up (a few Game Saves and videos, and no actual games).

 

I then decided to gradually start deleting items before backing them up, to see what was the culprit.  I deleted all my PS3 store videos (backed them up separately first).  It didn't help.  I deleted a bunch of saves I didn't need.  Still didn't help.  It is then, when I came across one person's tip - who suggested to delete all Game Data (not Game Save data).  I really didn't want to do that, because re-installing all the games is a pain, but figured out I have nothing to lose at this point.

 

Below is a list of items that I had inside my Game Data folder:

 

Red Dead Redemption

Heavy Rain

Assassin's Creed II

Uncharted 2

Uncharted 2 Beta

Uncharted

Valkyria

Assassin's Creed

Grand Theft Auto IV

Eye Create

Eye of Judgement

Warhawk

Oblivion

 

In the list above I crossed out all items I decided to delete.  After I deleted those items, the backup worked.  Note the green files - those didn't cause any problem and were backed up correctly  I wish I had time to delete them one by one to identify the problem file exactly, but at this point I went through almost 10 backup attempts and had no more patience left.  Note that I highlighted Uncharted 2 Beta.  I believe that particular Game Data is most likely responsible for backup failure, although it is possible any of the other red items were the problem as well.

 

So to sum up - the fix for the problem I described, is deleting your Game Data.  You don't need to delete all of it, because chances are, it's only a single file that's causing the problem.  If you happen to have Uncharted 2 Beta demo, then delete that, as it is most likely causing the problem.  If not, make sure you don't have any other demos in Game Data folder. 

 

Also - if you do solve your problem, please post in this thread, to help others with the same issue.

 

EDIT (11/28/2012).  This is over two years after the original post.  I read through following posts, and it looks like the most common issue is Uncharted 2 and Eyetoy Game Data.  Delete those files first, as they are most likely causing the problem.

 

Edited March 12, 2014 by Eternal21

[Scorpiio93]

From a quick Google search..

 

http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-General/Error-The-Back-Up-Operation-Could-Not-Be-Completed-80010038/td-p/6193909

 

When I swapped a 1TB drive into my PS3 I just backed up my saves to the cloud and that was it because I've heard about many people having issues backing up their whole HDD. Unfortunately it seems like the bigger the HDD you're backing up, the more likely the chance this error will occur.

 

 

Parker

 

 

I've never encountered any error's (not of my fault) when doing a full backup @ roughly 400GB.

Are you sure the drive you are backing up to is good? And the enclosure it's in? It's probably trying to write to bad sectors on the disc.

 

It's completely new, bought it about two days ago

Sony backup utility, and associated useless error codes is some of the shittiest piece of software I've ever encountered.  Your error code is slightly different than mine, but chances are my solution from 4 years ago, may help you troubleshoot your problem.  Also - keep in mind, backing up your data is only half the battle - you're likely to hit more problems when trying to restore it, so keep your original drive untouched, until you are 100% sure the restore worked.  I would post the link to the original thread on Playstation forums, but Sony has changed them so many times, that the only version I can find is a cached one, so I'll just copy and paste it here:

 

EDIT:

Never mind - found the original thread:

http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-General/ps3-restore-problems/m-p/14353820#M262772

& Parker and Eternal21, thank you for the links! I'll give them a read and will see what works best for me tomorrow

*fingers crossed*

[fabio-piesse]

 

 

 

All playstation.community pages are gone, but i solved thanks this quote.

I removed U2, RDR and GTA4 game data and finally i've been able to restore the backup.

No problem for gt6 (with all updates >30 GB) C2 game data neither for Saint Row GOoH, Helldivers and Mass Effect3 bought from psn and more then 200 saves data (some copyprotected) from several games

On 12/3/2014 at 7:28 PM, Eternal21 said:

Sony backup utility, and associated useless error codes is some of the shittiest piece of software I've ever encountered.  Your error code is slightly different than mine, but chances are my solution from 4 years ago, may help you troubleshoot your problem.  Also - keep in mind, backing up your data is only half the battle - you're likely to hit more problems when trying to restore it, so keep your original drive untouched, until you are 100% sure the restore worked.  I would post the link to the original thread on Playstation forums, but Sony has changed them so many times, that the only version I can find is a cached one, so I'll just copy and paste it here:

 

EDIT:

Never mind - found the original thread:

http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-General/ps3-restore-problems/m-p/14353820#M262772

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by fabio-piesse