Are u a smoker? if so, im pretty certain u just need to clean the lens..

go for it! u can do the send to Sony/buying/selling stuff afterwards as well.

What about your trophies and game saves?

 i didn't get it back yet, but when i do i have someone who'll pay-up $250 for it, only because its backwards capable though. oh and i have to add motorstrom and a free game. :/

@ Doby the ps3 turns on fine, so i save all my game saves to a memory stick, as for my trophies after i formatted and rebuilt the HD i checked on my friends PSN i still have all my triphies, i think they are saved on there server, or at least i hope they are

@Sirvice, No I Don't smoke and whats this "Sony/buying/selling" stuff , im interested lol

I might just sell it on Ebay as Ps3 40gb (disc error) and hopefully get £90-110, I'm also selling my PSP as faulty hopefully should get £20+ for that and my incar dvd should fetch another hundred. also selling sing star mikes and assasins creed, NFS pro street, and my beloved Resident evil gamecube version, just to help soften the blow purchasing the slim.

@phinch1
get a USB external HDD and do a backup

I haven't got one, hopefully a mem stick should work fine right?

if it can hold ur whole HDD , yes.

http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/backuputility.html

I suggest getting a Slim.