Is it possible to make a portion of a hard drive "invisible"?

[jzarux]

I find myself in dire need of a hard drive for my PlayStation 3. I have one from a laptop, but it has surface errors at the front. I was wondering if there is a way to make it so that my PlayStation 3 ignores the problem partition and use the next one in line. Or is there is a way to make it use a specific partition? I'm open to any suggestions to get this hdd to work with my system, as I'm recently laid off, very bored, and I need to save my savings for things like food and car payments since I'm embarking on an independent design endeavor. I greatly appreciate any suggestions.

 

[JDB Computing]

I'm not too familiar with Playstation 3 partitioning, but perhaps you could make two partitions on the drive - the first partition as something the PS3 cannot read, and the second one as something the PS3 can read?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, jzarux!

Unfortunately, if the drive has physical damage on it, your idea for invisible partition won't work. There's no way to know which exactly are the damaged sectors and where they are situated, let alone put them in one 'invisible' partition. I'd suggest you to google some HDD deals, there are some that won't cost that much. I highly doubt that your plan will work but if you still have access to it, you could give it a try and put the HDD in your PS3. See what happens.
You could also follow @JDB Computing suggestion to partition the drive, but as I already mentioned the corrupted sectors might as well be on the PS3 partition.

Good luck! Hope I was helpful!
SuperSoph_WD