about a year ago and while still under its one year warranty period my PS3 stopped reading disks.  It would not read any type of disk Blu-ray, DVD, CD anything.  i sent it to Sony and got it fixed.  Now today i was watching a Blu-Ray Movie when all of a sudden the movie stopped playing and the Blu-ray drive starting making this loud scratching noise.  I immediately turned it off and turned back on and removed the movie.  it looked like it had scratched the movie but after wiping it down it seemed ok "blu-ray anti scratch coating is amazing"  but when i put the movie back in it wouldnt read it.  I tried a game and it wouldnt read it either, tried a regular DVD and it wouldnt read it either.  I turned it off and on and shut it off from the back several time stood it up laid it back down but it wouldnt read any disk again.  I restored to factory setting and reformatted  but it still wouldnt read any disk.  Finally i was getting a little pissed and gave it a couple of smacks on the side and put the movie back in.  it made a weird clicking and then popping sound and then played the movie.  ive been testing it for the last 4 hours, finished watching the movie and played some Resistance 2 and it seems to be working fine.  But im worried it will stop reading them again.  Do you think Sony will repair or replace for free again being it seems to be the same problems as before or am I SOL since its beyond the warranty period?  How much would Sony charge me to fix it?  if it ends up breaking again should i call Sony and make a big fuss over the phone to try to get them to fix it for free, has this worked for any of you?  thanks to those of you that will offer help and thanks to all you little fanboys and trolls that will no doubt jump all over me for posting this, im sure your comments will be very entertaining.

You'll probably get both sides of the same event here.

some people will have gotten it repaired for free, some won't.

I guess you should just contact sony and check for the possible answer to your case with them. They'll probably give you the only right answer for your specific case. (a repeat-crash might send them towards the free repair, even though it's out of warranty).

Good luck with it, and hopefully it won't break down again, so you can keep enjoying it :)

it looks like the lens burned, but your happen to somethign really strange.

generally it doesn't make a noise, just stop reading them.

sony repair mine for free but it was on a 1 year warranty, by the way the guy that repair it told me that they are manufacturing new lens more resistance since the 80gb was introduced.
and the one he installed was likely not going to die.

why don't you just do what you have to do with it and not make a thread about it.

you probably aren't treating it right. 2 TIMES ? Sony will be pissed off at you

or sony should make a product that can't be broken?

@kirby Sarcasm ? getting hard to tell these days.

we have a winner folks, fanboys starting to come out the woodworks.  i just want to know if any others with a similar experience lets not get our panties in a bunch when replying ok.  now please go back and sit down in the little kids table and let the grown ups speak thank you.

Jo21 thanks for your imput but i dont know its the lens otherwise it wouldnt have started working again.  i think it might be a mechanical problem with the drive since it made all those strange noises before working again.  I called Sony and they said because its out of warranty i would have to pay $149 but insisted i wait since it seems to be working fine now.  the lady said it might have been a warped disk that made the drive go out of alignment, but i dont see anything wrong with the Blu-ray i was playing.

Exactly, just like Microsoft.

@o187em    A friend of mines PS3 stopped reading discs just outside of his 1 year warranty, and he had to pay for it to get fixed despite complaining to Sony about it.  So I wuold say complaining will get you nowhere but you might have better luck than my friend.  Since you already had this problem once.

in my case it was the lens, or the motor your make a noise mine didn't so more likely it's this, either case the piece i will take a picture later cost 90-100$ they probably charging 50$ for hand work.

some times they start working again, megaman2 ps3 also did.