PS3 Blu Ray just died

[Crux]

AS in, it will read normal discs just fine, but blu-ray discs and game discs I get nada. I tried a database rebuild, and file system restore, but it looks to be legitimately dead. Anyone gone through this before? Sony's website quotes $99 to fix it, but I'm not sure how I feel about spending that money and the multiple weeks without both blu-ray and the ps3 to go that route. Any feedback or experiences shared would be welcome!

[Scraper]

If it's the original phat system I would be willing to buy it from you for $50 assuming everything else works with it.

[Harpua3]

My phat died about a year and a half ago, I went and bought a slim. I was expensive and lazy;).