Hi all,

Right, PS3, Fat, Was originally a 40Gb version.
I ripped that out when I got PlayTV and put in a 500Gb WD hard drive.
Now I'm getting rid of PlayTV and using a standalone PVR and want to use the 500Gb drive with that.
The 40Gb drive got formated as fat32 I think it was and used to backup some pictures etc.

Sounds easy....

I've slimmed down my files to fit back on a 40Gb drive and backed up my PS3 to another drive altogether, ready to reinstall it.  Just to be nice I upgraded to the latest PS3 firmware before starting any of this as well.

I put in the original 40Gb hard drive and turned it on.  It came up with the screens I expected, saying it couldn't load.  It then asked me for version 3.21 firmware on a usb drive which I had ready.
This went through the install and when it got to 100% it restarted like it said it would.
Only it then went back to the first screen saying it couldn't load properly and I'd need version 3.21 on a usb drive....

I've tried formatting the 40Gb drive in different ways, even removing all partitions so it's blank like it would be if you bought it new.  It's the same drive david, the same one it shipped with originally so it must be compatible.

Any ideas on where to from here now?!
Is there some fault with version 3.21 that doesn't allow this to work properly.
Can I revert my PS3 to an earlier firmware and try that, does that even work?

This is all quite time consuming and I'm getting well psd off now.  Ideas MUCH appreciated!