Happened to me today. Never heard of this problem till I Googled the fault.
I got a 40gb PS3 just before Christmas '07 & it died when I had a power cut when the HDD light was flashing the day before MGS4 was released (AGONY)
I phoned Sony after abit of research & I got told the same thing 'It only happens on the 60 & 20gb models' to which I replied 'It's a 40...' what happend is when they received my 40gb when it broke & it was under warranty they sent me a refurbished 20gb model with a new 40gb hdd inside.
After voicing my displeasure of buying a 40gb model & receiving a lesser speced & cheaper version of the system I originally purchased I got an apology & they are going to fix this issue. Still couldn't offer me an appropriate solution as to how to recover my game saves...

Just aswell Sony usually has rock solid reliability, their customer service is f*****g appauling.

Anyone here succesfully recovered date or found a web page were someone else has?