No! My PS3 is Dead! - UPDATE

Okay, so I had an email from SCEE, asking me to phone them quoting a reference number. So I did this today on my lunch break, and spoke to a very helpful lady.

She asked for the serial number of the console, which I gave her, after which she confirmed that the warranty had expired. She then proceeded to talk me through putting the PS3 into safe mode, which then gives you 6 options on screen. She told me to select the third option, which scans the hard drive and fixes any errors.

I got an error message telling me that the HDD was corrupted; she told me this was a generic message - good to know.

After the scan was finished, I tried two game discs - nothing.

She then advised me that I should do a full PS3 system restore - which will taken between 2 - 4 hours. Before doing this, I should use the backup utility to save everything on either USB flash drive or external hard drive.

Here comes the crunch:

If that still hasn't resolved the issue, I'll get a new PS3. But. I need to pay £131.00 for it. For that price, I'll get a new PS3 - either the same one that I have now - fat, 60gb, backwards compatible, or a fat 160gb but without the features of my current model. The new PS3 will be delivered to my door, whereupon I will give the driver my bust PS3, and he will give me my new one.

I really hope it doesn't come to this.

But come on, let's think about this. I paid somewhere in the region of £260 for a PS3 two years and three months ago. Is it really fair/right/ethical to think that I can be charged an extra £131.00 for an unknown fault that has developed?

What would you do?

No! My PS3 is Dead!

Morning all. A very glum, despair-filled morning, may I add.

My PS3's Blu Ray drive packed in last night.

It's the 60gb, fat PS3 that I have, purchased from Comet (UK) in December 2007.

Although I'm not a hard core gamer, it gets reasonable use, and I hardly ever use it to watch blu ray films.

So here's the thing. I turn on the PS3 to play Fifa. It doesn't recognise that there is a disc in. Strange. Turn it off, turn it on, still doesn't recognise it.

Take the disc out, check it, clean it, pop it back in. Still nothing.

Hmm.

Try Avatar. Nope.

Try a mp3 CD. Yes, reads it.

Try Digger Demo - takes AGES to start, get an error message:

An error occurred during the start operation (80010006)

Tried it again, it worked. Still no game discs though.

After writing an email to Sony, outlining the above, I went to bed, very frustrated.

Got up this morning, still wouldn't read game discs.

Anyone else had this problem, know of a solution?

I've Googled it, and a lot of the answers are "Folding at home corrupted".

I haven't installed folding at home.

I can HEAR the drive struggling to read discs.

HELP!