found a Playstation 3 (model CECHH04) by the dumpster. cleaned it up and inspected - it’s missing the BD and the HD and its cage; I jammed a normal 2.5" HDD in there and stuck some cardboard around. the light turned green, the HD spins up, the fans are spinning and the TV shows it’s alive - no OS though.
I’ve downloaded Sony’s official firmware and also some evilnat CFW jailbreak; tried both but the prompt on the TV is to attach a controller to the USB and press the PS button, which I haven’t got. can I do something without it? tried a noname PC gamepad and keyboard but no go…
got me a fake PS3 controller. looks the part and what’s more important - the PS button is detected!
however, I can’t get to load the update from the USB. possibly because I’m missing the BD…? I got the noBD CFW but how can I get it to load? after pressing the start+select combo it’s supposed to load the update from the USB but that’s not happening, it just says “Checking… Please wait.”. the USB drive shows no activity (it’s got a LED for r/w activity).
edit: after like a year and a half of just sitting there, it finally prompted me to press start+select for five seconds to format. upon complying, another decade or so passed before it began to install the OFW. fingers crossed!
edit 2: musta crossed those finger wrong, it’s now stuck in an update loop… starts installing and at 41% it stops with error 8002F114E. upon restart, it begins again.