the purpose of this is to save your game data for whatever reason you choose. it is mainly used for peace of mind - if your PS3 breaks, you can then copy this game save to a new PS3. game saves will only work on any one PSN account.

for instance, if your PS3 breaks and you go to restore your old game data on a new PS3, your new user on your new PS3 must have logged into your old playstation network account for it to work. this also stops you being able to copy game save data from one user to another on a single console.

right, here's how:

1 - get a USB stick/portable HDD etc and plug into a PS3
2 - along the main PS3 menu go across to "game"
3 - go to "saved data utility (PS3)"
4 - press X
5 - scroll to the game you wish to back up your data and click triangle
6 - press X on copy
7 - select your USB stick/ portable HDD as the destination

it has now backed up your game save.

so, if you do this, then something happens and you want to restore this data:

1 - put your USB stick/portable HDD containing the data into the PS3
2 - along the main PS3 menu go across to "game"
3 - go to "saved data utility (PS3)"
4 - press X
5 - this time, press X on your usb drive
6 - highlight the game data you wish to restore
7 - press triangle and then copy
8 - it will prompt you to overwrite data with the same name - click ok

your game will now be EXACTLY as it was when you backed it up initially

is your USB drive NTFS? if so, not sure if the PS3 can read/write to that file system format, try another drive and make sure it's in FAT32.

if that doesn't work, put your drive in your computer, right click and go into properties. somewhere there should be something for permissions. check the top level folder (root) has full read/write access. i don't use windows so can't recall exactly if it's done that way.

hope that gets you sorted.

mods - make this a sticky. this question gets asked time and time again in various PS3 threads.

hmmmm strange. try and see if there are any settings in the PS3 menu, and check the USB stick permissions from your PC. have you tried another stick?

so there was already PS3 data on the drive? if so, was it from a different PS3 username or PSN ID?

i have no idea then mate, that's really strange. only thing is use another USB stick if you have one. even a phone these days would work.

i'd be very surprised if it doesn't work. try one without any previous PS3 stuff on it.