My Playstation 3, like many others, has broke from a problem that seems to be pretty common. (Also, my warranty expired two years ago)While playing, during mid-game, the screen froze, but the music is still playing. You can't turn it off with the control or by pressing the power button, so I had to turn it off from behind. When the Xmb menu came back on, the disc that was in the PS3 wasn't showing up. The swirly loading thing just continued to spin, but no progress. I continued to try with every disc possible, but all refused to load. I then found out that the disc wasn't spinning at all inside the PS3, because it came out the same way I put it in every time. I figured it was the lens or the hard drive, but didn't have the guts to open it up. 8 months later (now), I am deciding to either send it to Sony (which I really don't want to do for the cost) or fix it myself (or some other cheap-fixing company).

I want to know if I were to open it up, what excactly am I supposed to replace?

For those people who had the same exact problem and now have their PS3 working again, what steps did you take to fix it?

This is a one shot deal, and I do not have the money to try again. (Meaning, once I use the money, I won't have the money to try and fix it again)

Any suggestions? Probably anything will be better than playing demos forever. Thanks (a lot)!

By the way, I would like to keep the same PS3. The reason being is I have the last version that played PS1 and PS2 games and they are not in production anymore. I just wanted to replace the Blu-Ray lens or send it in to a cheaper fixer-upper.