PS3 YLOD data recovery options?

[Crispymk2]

My fat PS3 40Gig/running 500Gig HDD finally died tonight, was only on for 10mins and then switched itself off and beeped a few times and now it won't boot/has the YLOD (Yellow Light Of Death)

Not too fussed as I have had a few years out of it and been running it daily with PlayTV for the last 6 months which probably finished it off.

Main thing I'm pissed about is all my save games as I don't have a back up (yeah, yeah) and can't access the HDD anymore. Also, from what I've read I can't just stick my 500Gig HDD into a new slim PS3 as the data is encoded to each system.

So has anyone here tried the "hair dryer" fix? I don't think I'll get enough time out of it to back up the nearly 400Gig of crap on there but I might be able to get my save games off so I don't have to start Skyrim/Fallout etc from scratch

I guess my only other option is to try and get someone to repair it but I have heard they sometimes fail again really quickly. Anyone know somewhere good/cheap? Not sure it would be worth it but I guess I could get my data off then trade it in on a slim.

[MGR]

One of my mate's managed to resurrect his PS3 long enough to copy his game saves onto a USB thumb drive using the hair dryer trick. I believe some game saves are locked to the console though. My old man tried to revive his YLOD 40GB unit using the hair dryer trick but no dice.

The only permanent fix for YLOD is a re-ball job using leaded solder. When the console was worth $999 it was probably worth the effort but not anymore.

You'll find the local 'repair' shops will just reflow the board using a heat gun (the better ones will also use a good quality flux too). But this fix is only temporary. It'll likely fail again within weeks (maybe months at a push). Google "Gilksy's YLOD" for youtube videos and guide on how to perform this fix yourself.

If you revive your old PS3 using the heat gun then buy another new PS3 and transfer all the content using the Data Transfer Utility:

http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/transferutility.html

This will transfer all content including console locked games, saves and video content.

[tinto]

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Yellow-Light-of-Death-Repair/3654/1