Hardware Is this PS3 bricked?

[Weaselpipe]

I bought an old style PS3 40gb off EBay, it was for spares or repair, and the listing claimed that it needed an upgrade but she couldn't do it. When you tuen it on it says "cannot access file system, insert media containing firmware 3.72 or higher" I have done all that it says and for 3.72 and the latest one it gets to 99 percent before freezing. When I went into safe mode and tried to do a factory reset it told me that the hdd could not be accessed.

I do not have a spare hdd and it will not fit in my pc to look through it- do you think it is a faulty hdd or do you think the system is frazzled? I am reluctant to biy a new hdd in case it is the whole ps3

 

[Ryupower]

it could be a bad hdd

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

I bought an old style PS3 40gb off EBay, it was for spares or repair, and the listing claimed that it needed an upgrade but she couldn't do it. When you tuen it on it says "cannot access file system, insert media containing firmware 3.72 or higher" I have done all that it says and for 3.72 and the latest one it gets to 99 percent before freezing. When I went into safe mode and tried to do a factory reset it told me that the hdd could not be accessed.

I do not have a spare hdd and it will not fit in my pc to look through it- do you think it is a faulty hdd or do you think the system is frazzled? I am reluctant to biy a new hdd in case it is the whole ps3

I would bet money its a fried hard drive since I have seen the exact same behavior. Replace the hard drive and do the firmware thing and it sounds like it would be good to go.

Edit: The reason it's asking about the firmware is that it sounds like it is a newer PS3, part of the firmware is stored on the hard drive.

Edit 2: By newer I mean not a launch unit, they where the only PS3's where the firmware was stored on chips. I think 256MB's of NAND or something. On the new ones I think they put 8MB's of NAND and that is enough to hold a boot loader and tools to format the hard drive and ask for a thumb drive with the version of the firmware that is equal or greater to the one installed.

 

[Weaselpipe]

Thank you both, I did think it was but haad concerns that there was a missing chip or something, however I just tried turning it on with no hdd and it just black screened so it must know there is one in there!