Well this just sucks all kinds of ass.
My 40GB (I upgraded to a 320GB HDD) fat i bought in November 2007 stopped detecting any kind of disc last night. Slot drive works perfectly, but you put a disc in, you can faintly hear the Blu-ray drive act like it starts to want to read it and then it just stops.
I stayed up til 3am watching YouTube videos on possibilities trying to fix it. Tried all of them, every little trick and nothing. I took it apart, cleaned it, and it still won't work. I read several places that this particular model has the faultiest laser assembly so that doesn't fill me with confidence in replacing it.
I am not sure what to do. I have a massive backlog of disc based games. It was my primary Blu-ray player. I need it for GTA V in Sept., my PS+ expires in 10 days and i planned to renew it, but I took all the extra money and trade in credit I had down to GameStop yesterday morning and pre ordered a PS4, games, and extra controller. I really, really hate to go buy a new PS3 this close to PS4 launch. In fact, I don't think thats even an option as my wife will probably remove my balls and put them in her purse, especially since I threw down all that money on PS4 yesterday.
I guess my options are:
1. Buy a new laser assembly for about 35 bucks off eBay and hope this fixes it.
2. Sell it for parts and probably get maybe 50 bucks towards a new one. Then go buy a new Blu-ray player.
3. Cancel my PS+, trade in or sell all of these games in my backlog (GoW: Ascension, x-com, FFXIII, FFXIII-2, a few others)
4. Keep it and use it as a media box and make digital purchases, and hope the rest of the system holds out.
Wow, this just couldn't have happened at a worse time.