Reminds me of my PS2 stories. After my 2nd PS2 broke, and being sick of waiting 9 months for Sony to send me a fixed one (that WAS under warranty!) - I gave up on Playstation for good. My GC got all the loving from then on...
(all the problems I had were disc related btw...)

Mine crashed yesterday during an online session of Killzone 2... it pissed me off..

^60GB or 80GB?

This is a terrible situation you've found yourself in. Sony should be ashamed of themselves if they don't take care of their customers better than this.

By the way, outside of this thread I had never heard of PS3s failing, until just this past weekend. I met another man from the US who just happened to come into my favorite bar Saturday night, passing through Hiroshima on his way back to the US. The company he works for sends him to Japan several times a year (I believe he said he's been here 36 times for business). During small talk, we somehow got on the topic of the PS3 and how his failed on him recently. He told me that the BluRay mechanism (the laser specifically, I believe) had started to fail in the first-generation models.

By the way, the company he works for is IBM, and his business trips to Japan involve work at a Sony plant outside of Nagasaki.

Soul Calibur has 2 online gameplay rankings, one for "normal vs" and one for "spelcial vs". I was #3 in the special vs rankings before my ps3 broke. I was actually still #6 when I got the refurb ps3 after the 3 week wait but after I restored the "new" ps3 with a 2 month old back up I made when I swapped my HDD, the sc4 servers picked up my old stats and overwrote my "real stats" that were there previously (this is what I fear is the case with kz2...your saved stats and the server stats can't be different).

I became number twenty something and played continuously till I got back to number 6 then my save file corrupted this time. How much bad luck can one person get. I actually started playing again from my old back up and made it to #11 again till I lost interest in ranked matches due to people refusing to play me because of my stats. I have dropped to the twenties again since.  Even "really good" players run away because they don't want to risk losing and lower their win/loss ratios. So I only play SC4 once in a while with friends now. I have lots of friends from that community

Yeah I tried...I think I talked to people who just don't care because they just kept reiterating that it was company policy and that the failures were under .1% like I'm supposed to believe that. Yeah, they're definitely recycling the lemons at our expense...I guess they're really broke or maybe it's just because 60gbs aren't manufactured anymore so they have no choice.

I'll try the vacuum method if I can get this thing fixed. I'm guessing it should probably be on low power. I'll sort it out...it won't be through sony though. Worst case scenario, I'll man up and do it myself lol. What I really need is my data back not for the lemon to last another couple years because I know for sure now that it won't.

Thanks for wishing me luck man.

UPDATE: I think I just found guys who may be able to get me running again. It's this site: videogame911.com. They seem to know a lot about YLOD but I need to do some background checking on them first

@Pristine20

I have ran into similar problems that you have had, just not with the PS3. Here is some advice I would give you, take it or not its up to you.

I recently had a problem with a Sony 52 inch HDTV. It was basically a lemon from the start, long story short I had it for nearly 1.5 years and I had service people coming to my house on average once every 2 or 3 months replacing the same thing basically. After going without my big screen tv for several weeks (waiting on parts again) I finally flipped out. I started looking for higher ups to bitch too and try and get my tv replaced.

So I wrote a letter to Sony's VP and Best Buys President (Best Buy is where I bought the TV). I put down what my problem was and that I was a loyal customer and had spent over $6000 at Best Buy within 2 years time on electronics. I sent the letters registered so someone had to sign for it, and within 2 days of Best Buy receiving my letter I had the VP of Best Buy calling me personally. I ended up getting full in store credit for my tv, and had a new one within 3 days. Around a week after Sony called me and was going to "overhaul" the tv as well.

So my advice would be to find out where Sony's main corporate office is for America and send a registered letter to them in care of their President or VP. Let them know exactly what has happend to you and that you will no longer be purchasing anything that has Sony in its name again if you don't get your PS3 repaired for free. Let them know how much money you have spent on their products etc.. And that it was repaired less than a year before for the same problem. More than likely someone other than a peon will return your message, no matter if they fix it or not.

P.S. Hope this helps you out, and be sure to put all the important stuff in the letter like.
Your name
Address
Phone Number
Serial # of your PS3, and the fact you would like the same PS3 back.

Thanks a lot for the advice man. I just found out that kz2 stats are saved to the server anyways so i won't be losing my killzone 2 data by getting a different ps3 from sony. I hope I can log into a new ps3 with my account even if my account hasn't been deactivated from the old one. I'm curious though, won't it be faster to send an email? or is that more unlikely to be sorted out?

Sending a registered letter takes a few days longer but atleast you know without a doubt a higher up will read it.  Unless you know the President or VP's real life email address good luck with them ever seeing it.  

I actually just figured it out myself before you responded lol. I'll be sending that letter today. I'd rather have a new one now that I'm positive that my kz2 stats are saved because this lemon recycling needs to stop. At this point, I don't even care if I lose BC. Thanks for the info man. Looks like I'll be writing to Jack Tretton who should be at this address for anyone else who needs it:

US Headquarters

919 & 989 East Hillsdale Boulevard
Foster City CA, 94404
(650) 655 8000