Just thought I would post what I did when my Blue Ray failed on my 40GB PS3. A disk got jammed in it one day so I opened it to get it out and springs and cogs went flying! I tried like hell to rebuild it but had no luck so decided to get a replacement. However I found out that each Blue Ray player in a PS3 is 'tied' to the machine it was originally installed in so straight swapping is not possible. I tried it by using a Blue Ray player from a 60GB model that had the red flashing light error and my PS3 wouldn't acknowledge the drive at all. But with a flash of inspiration I swapped the PCB's that are on the bottom of the players (about 5 screws and 4 or 5 ribbon cables - easy done) and it works perfectly. If your drive is mechanically faulty then this is a good solution to a repair but if it has had a bad flash or software update then it's not going to work. Hope this helps some anyway. Phill.sparkyuiop

Phil... read your own post...

The players are not "tied" to the ps3... but the circuit identification board is. Don't misrepresent your understanding of the internal workings of computer equipment as "fact" or your ability to figure out comp hardware 101 T&E level stuff as "a flash of inspiration" (read: "Dude I am sooo smart).

Your player can be changed out, there are two different versions though, you need to figure out which one is in your box before you order a replacement part. It is eitherKES-400A or KES-410A, if you have a shiny silver bottom on your blu-ray drive then you've got the KES-410A... if not, the other.

M

Thanks guys, i will try them as soon as i finish watching The Price is Rightxboxrockz1

It was a sony rep that made the offer over the hacking. And to answer the above question about "why would sony give incentive for someone to hack their system, that doesn't make sense", not to you. But lots of software companies give out such incentive to "prove" that their platform/software is "unhackable". If sony's 128bit encryption was so "super serial" then the pentagon (who's encryption is much larger) would be "super unhackable"... Yet it happens. The ps3 has been hacked as well, but the people that do/did it aren't doing it for notoriety, they are doing it because they want to cut corners, or say "I did that".

As for cheating, it wouldn't be nearly as hard as you guys seem to think to come out with a viable and amiable "cheating device" for the ps3 or 360. All the maker would have to do is supply sony with the initial boot code used by the disc(s), and wham... You dissenclude any system transmitting that code from being able to connect to the PSU servers. But the net is full of pompus uneducated idiots who like to tell all of you that these things aren't even options. Just like sony making a patch that allowed you to replace the in game music, with your own playlist, they absolutely could, easilly; or the people that say microsoft can't add an equalizer to the Zune because they didn't install and equalizer chip..... Equalizers in mp3 players are digital now days, not analog, (or "virtual" not "physical" just in case someone out there thinks they know the full spectrum of comp talk) they just don't want to do it. Just like they don't feel like writing a patch that would make the zune work their own formats and software, and sony doesn't feel like doing any of this. And they don't have to, because their consumers are sissies and pushovers that will stand up for their laziness, and applaud their stupidity.... Instead of boycotting, or banding together and demanding they be treated right for the money they paid over a crappy console.

M