I bought my first PS3 in european launch date. Last year the YLOD visited me. I don't recommend to give money to fix it for less than 6 months. Yes, mine had PS/PS2 backward compatibility as well, but actually I never played any PS/PS2 game. So, I forced to buy the only available PS3 console, which right now is the Super Slim model.

The fu**ing thing is that your HD is locked, and unfortunately it cannot be read in another PS3, even if you find the exactly same model (FAT). Probably they want to sell PLUS subscriptions in order to have their Cloud service to save your savegames there.