Neighbour has asked if I know anything about PS3's - and apart from playing CoD and the like, I can't say I know much!

Kids couldn't get out today because of the rain, so played with the PS3 - Mum doesn't know what they did (or didn't do) but there's a message "the hard disk cannot be accessed"

Anyone know how to access the hard disk on a PS3?

Share this link with them, it might help.
"The hard disk cannot be accessed" - PlayStation® Community Forums

Thanks for the link. I downloaded the latest update, but can't seem to upload it. Following the directions on the screen, but although I press Start and Select, and have the usb connected, it's giving the message:

"no applicable update data was found. Connect storage media that contains update data of version 3.72 or later, and then press the START and SELECT buttons at the same time"

I checked, and the download is on the usb stick (4.21).

Now, there were a couple of short power failures this afternoon - could this have caused the problem?

reboot might have worked, could be the drive failing or possibly connection come loose (unlikely)

If only it was that simple as rebooting....

My own ps3 is still in warranty, so I'm not prepared to attempt swapping over hard drives - and mine is a 320gb anyway, not the 160 in this machine.

I've emailed uk support for their assistance on this, as all "fixes" mentioned in the support forums have failed to resolve the issue.

Let us know how it turns out. I don't have a PS3, but I do have an Xbox 360 and the hard drive in it is only 4 gigs so I don't have to worry about it right now.

Originally Posted by fredjclaus

Let us know how it turns out. I don't have a PS3, but I do have an Xbox 360 and the hard drive in it is only 4 gigs so I don't have to worry about it right now.

Sorry if this is a bit late for an update - but it turned out the hard drive had failed and I have to say customer support at playstation uk was superb. I was given verbal instructions on how to deconstruct, take out the defunct hard drive, replace it, reformat the new one and sent an install download. All for free (apart from the new hard drive, that is).