Hey fellow duders, I'm sorry but I just need to vent for a bit and maybe you guys might actually even be able to help me too though Im afraid I'll just have to face the reality of it all.....

SO, here we go.

I was just casually browsing the psn store on my ps4 I've had since launch when suddenly the psn store stopped responding.

As a matter of fact EVERYTHING about the ps4 stopped responding, even the power button didn't work anymore (pressing it would make the ps4 go *beepbeepbeep* and nothing else) and none of my controllers would connect. After waiting for half an hour I saw no other option but to pull the plug. I wasnt even downloading anything, I thought to myself, so no need to worry about corrupting any data...well boy was I WRONG.Since turning it back on its stuck in a loop of going into checking system data. I've searched the internet and now I think I know what sadly must be done.........

As a side rant: My ps4 has NEVER had any trouble with actually playing games but that OS has been running like hot garbage for me ever since ive started to own kind of a lot of games...havent been able to check the facebooky shit under my games or the whats new section for at least a year now, shit just loads indefinitely. I also randomly get kicked back to the ps4 "timeline" when browsing the internet or using the psn store a lot, its just terrible(not AS bad as it was for me on the ps3 though).

Not only can I spent the next couple of days redownloading my 2 terabyte of shit back at 500kb/1mb a second but I'll also lose most of my damn saves. I've stopped uploading my saves to the cloud when it was full after using my ps4 for about a year and so I've just lost a ton of save file from at least the last few years, first that comes to mind is I was almost done with gravity rush, uncharted 4, mirrors edge, 80 hours in and 2 bosses left on dark souls 2, 40 hours into the witcher 3 and fallout 4, bye bye newgame plus dark souls 3 , just UGH. I always go through a billion games at a time real slow and that is fine most of the time but damn does it suck extra hard to lose your saves then.

Anyway theres no other options than re-initializing the whole damn thing though right? I've tried updating through the internet and rebuilding the database in safe mode and that just boots me right back to the checking system storage bullshit. Im just hovering over that initialize button now pondering if there's not any other way...

Well, goodbye PT, (unless someone here has a brilliant idea) I will miss the historic and monetary value you've added to my ps4.... And goodbye to the long games I wont return to in at least a loooooong while due to having to start all over again.

I don't have a PS4, but isn't there a way to back your hard drive to a PC, fix the PS4 and then restore all data from the PC?

@acsct3: No idea, I only have a slow ass macbook, no pc and dont have anything that holds 2 terabytes of data besides my ps4 hdd so I hadn't even really thought of that.

Maybe I could upload my drive to someone elses pc.....buuuut I dont think it'll help though because the data that would presumably be corrupted atm will obviously just stay corrupted when transfered back and forth right?..... still worth a try though maybe, thanks!

EDIT: I think I'll get back on the problem tommorow as its getting late and I dont want to make any stupid decisions.

This has some relevant information. Seems like connecting the hard drive to a PC won't work and removing it and doing anything to it (?) makes the PS4 format it when it's reconnected.
I had a PS3 and it had a special debug menu if I held the power button for a long time when powering it on. Does the PS4 have such a thing? If so, does it offer any data backup or recovery options?

@lestephan: the problem doesn't sound to lie in your game saves, though. Just brcause something is corrupt doesn't mean it's all corrupt.

There is actually a trick to getting P.T back even if you've uninstalled it apparently!

I just upgraded my hard drive to 2TB and redownloaded PT. Eurogamer has an article on how to redownload IF you previously already downloaded PT.

ive been having the infinite loading problem as well. It hasn't effected anything too important (i do miss visiting the Giant Bomb community page) but i am having the same dilemma. Im gonna get a USB drive and save everything I can on that and then do the wipe.

I hope it works brother. Keep us updated

This just happened to me a few weeks ago as well!

Truly awful I empathise

@flashflood_29: Thats totally true but i need to initialize my hdd through that holding down the power button thing someone else mentioned to make my ps4 go again and that wipes the whole thing.

Im just going to do it right now :O

AND Im gonna redownload PT (Thank you guys, I didnt know that was possible) and HOPE that through some miracle my ps4 started uploading savefiles to the cloud automatically after they made the cloud bigger (never turned it back on after its was full and that was before sony upgraded the cloudspace to 10gigs)

I'll let you guys know if initializing it solved the infinite loading of stuff as well.

EDIT: ok my last save on the cloud was from may 2015 :( the infinite loading seems gone though

And before initializing I first downloaded the new os through safe mode so I wouldnt need a usb stick(none of the ones I have fit in a ps4) and that worked perfectly for me. As long as you dont pick the 7th option in the safe mode menu.

EDIT 2: Wait... you have to copy over your save files from the cloud ONE BY ONE?! thats fucking madness, I must be overlooking something right?...

And PT is still in my library but I get an error when trying to download it, ill try the eurogamer thing this weekend.

I hope my fightmoney is still intact in SF5 :')

@lestephan: the point was to backup just the save files that were presumably not corrupt.

@flashflood_29: Lol I get that but I couldn't dude, acsct3 already posted a link to a thread about backing up solely save files from the ps4. It wasnt possible for me.