My Original Japanse 60GB b/C modle PS3 YLOD'd yesterday at 3:15PM(;_;)

I was playit in the moring hen at 1:30 when to launch and after I got back after doing some stuff I whent back on and it loaded up into main menu then 15min later the fan cut and the syteam powerd down.

what is the best way to get the data off the hdd and onto an external hdd for tranfer over to new PS3?

Sorry to hear that. Just remember all of the good times. I haven't experienced this tragedy, yet. My 80GB from '08 is still hanging in there. I hope I never have to feel the pain that you're feeling.

Thanks man^^ My Original Japanese 60GB lasted almost 7 years old I thought this day would never come. Just hope I can fix it or at lest image the hdd to a new unit.

send it to endless electronics. They will reball the you and permanently fix ylod. Google endless electronics

Anyone else still using their 60gb ps3 -- it's probably a good idea to open it up and replace the thermal paste on the cpu and gpu. There are disassembly instructions on youtube, and I made a thread about here it at some point.

update
I will buy another from Japan to use as main PS3 if I can get my curnt one working then I will backup up the data and transfer it over.

I guess it had a good run almost 7 years of faultless operation with just the occasional freeze. the only bad thing is I will have also get a Japanese PS2 for my Japanese PS2 game collection.

Don't use the hairdryer thing. It doesn't create enough heat to do what it's supposed to do, and you could end up melting the plastic.
There's a repair shop in my area I can take it too, should something like that happen... I'd say do that, or, look around online. You'll pay shipping, and labor, but, they'll have it fixed for you. And, the process doesn't require your hard drive at all. You can even look on ebay if you really want to.

As for the hard drive... You can get an external reader for an internal HDD. Just make sure it's fitted for a 2.5 inch SATA drive.  But, that wont get your data onto a new PS3....  Should have done regular back-ups before it was too late.

It sounds funny, but yes the hairdryer works somehow ...
I 'fixed' 2 of my ylod ones so that I could make a backup :)

I hope my slim dont go ylod ...

Well, if I may rephrase, I will state that results WILL vary from person to person.  Further damage of your system will make any restoration process harder.  Go to ebay, find someone to perform a reflow.