Plan for Yellow Light of Death

Unfortunately, my old 80GB backwards compatability PS3 finally recieved the yellow light of death after numerous years and countless memories.... It is my understanding that the only fix for this is to send it to Sony for $150 and have them wipe the data on it as well. Is this really the only fix? If so, is it "good as new" again and will last me another many years to get me to PS4? Other than losing the backwards compatibility (goodbye Battlefront and Final Fantasy.....), what annoys me is all the data I will be losing if Sony really does wipe the PS3 in a fix.

Here are the options I see me having.

1. Send to Sony for the $150 fix and lose data.

2. Buy new PS3 for $250-300 and lose data.

OR... youtube time for hybrid plan,

Take hard drive out, blow dry the back for 15 minutes in 5 minute intervals, get onto a hopefully working PS3, quickly eject Assassin's Creed III, quickly buy PlayStation Plus membership, save vital files to PlayStation Plus, then

3. Send to Sony for $150 fix (here's the thing... will they fix it after tampering it with the blow dryer?)

4. Buy new PS3 and download the files saved on PlayStation Plus.

Since I want to save the data (that's my childhood right there), I'd rather not do options 1 or 2. So my primary questions follow:

A. Will Sony fix a tampered-with-blow-dryer PS3?

B. Is a yellow light of death Sony fix "as good as new" for the next many years to come?

C. Is my blow dryer technique to save the data possible?

Any help anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated. I love my PS3 and I want to save my childhood memories.

Check out this link.

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

If you can get the old PS3 working long enough, I beleive this is your best option.

Unfortunately, my old 80GB backwards compatability PS3 finally recieved the yellow light of death after numerous years and countless memories.... It is my understanding that the only fix for this is to send it to Sony for $150 and have them wipe the data on it as well. Is this really the only fix? If so, is it "good as new" again and will last me another many years to get me to PS4? Other than losing the backwards compatibility (goodbye Battlefront and Final Fantasy.....), what annoys me is all the data I will be losing if Sony really does wipe the PS3 in a fix.

Here are the options I see me having.

1. Send to Sony for the $150 fix and lose data.

2. Buy new PS3 for $250-300 and lose data.

OR... youtube time for hybrid plan,

Take hard drive out, blow dry the back for 15 minutes in 5 minute intervals, get onto a hopefully working PS3, quickly eject Assassin's Creed III, quickly buy PlayStation Plus membership, save vital files to PlayStation Plus, then

3. Send to Sony for $150 fix (here's the thing... will they fix it after tampering it with the blow dryer?)

4. Buy new PS3 and download the files saved on PlayStation Plus.

Since I want to save the data (that's my childhood right there), I'd rather not do options 1 or 2. So my primary questions follow:

A. Will Sony fix a tampered-with-blow-dryer PS3?

B. Is a yellow light of death Sony fix "as good as new" for the next many years to come?

C. Is my blow dryer technique to save the data possible?

Any help anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated. I love my PS3 and I want to save my childhood memories.

Kerry12424