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So, today I was playing my PS3 as normal, and then turned it off through the XMB menu, as normal. It turned off normally, but when my sister went to play it, things got weird. It gave a message saying that "the hard disk has been corrupted and will be restored," then went through a lengthy restoring loading bar. After it completed, it restarted the system. But, instead of going back to normal, it did the entire process again. And again. And again. It seemed the system was stuck in an infinite loop of borken-ness, so I checked the Playstation.com section on support. For the problem I had (which it described to the letter), it recommended putting the PS3 in Safe Mode, and then re-building the database. So I put the PS3 in Safe Mode, and selected Re-build database, but when I choose it, it gives me an error message saying that the hard disk can not be accessed. So now I'm pretty confused, as the restoring message makes it sound like the system is corrupted, while the error message makes it sound like the hard disk just isn't there. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can fix this?

Its a PS3 slim, fully updated, about 3 years old, and kept elevated and away from the wall to avoid overheating.

EDIT: Problem = fixed.

Thank the divines for the reply! One question, how exactly do I remove the hard drive without damaging the system?

Ever heard of the bathtub scale?

That might be your problem.

Basically, it's a scale like a bathtub. It's for hardware peformance.

For the 1st year, It is the highest it can be. The next 4 years, though, it is at the very bottom of the scale. The 5th year, it is at the very top again.

Alright, thanks for the replies. I'll do some more research, hopefully I'll be able to find an answer.

Talk to a person at a Gamestop or something. They might be able to help you with it. Or call Sony Tech Support.

Ok, so if just taking out the hard drive and blowing out some dust will work, this should be an easy fix. If not, is there any way that I can move all of my files to an external storage device while the PS3 is in this rather debilitated state? At that point, I would restore the whole system, then just put everything back onto it.

The hard drives appear to be 2.5" with SATA connection. You should theoretically be able to remove the drive and hook it up to your computer (either to your motherboard, with a drive header or an external hard drive enclosure) and make an image (copy) of it to write to your new hard drive.

Yes , you can easily remove your hard drive, in order to clean it. And not, as far as I know there is no way to copy your saves from the Ps3, if you can't access to the XMB.
Unfortunately I've never removed an Hard Disk, so I can't help you in the hardware; by the way, usually the "file corrupted" message shows when the Ps3 is turned off "badly".

Alright, I took it out and cleaned off all the dust, and while it was as dusty as the Ashpit in there, it still doesn't work. Well, as far as I know. I didn't have the patience to sit through the restoring bar again. Maybe now rebuilding the database will work or something.

@Archea: That sounds like it will work, I shall look into that. First I'll need something that can actually hook the hard drive up to a computer.

@Skyr: I know that those are the conditions that the corruption normally occurs under, but I didn't shut it off during any kind of loading or saving. I also shut it off from the XMB menu, which allows the system to finish whatever it's doing before it shuts off.

EDIT: Rebuilding the database and restoring the File System still have no effect. I'll have to try moving everything to a new hard drive or bringing it to Gamestop. Thanks for all your help everyone!

EDIT THE SECOND: What luck! I actually just managed to find an entire guide to completely fix this problem without losing any data at all! Problem=potentially resolved!

OK, So I found this supposedly complete guide to fixing all of a PS3's Hard Disk problems. I was hoping that some people here could look it over and verify that it would work, along with letting me know if the program it requires is any good or not.

It's quite long, so putting it under this spoiler...


... Apparently all the pictures that went along with that guide can't be copy pasted from the document I saved. Oh well...