Apparently the latest firmware update is bricking a lot of PS3 consoles. It seems to be affecting mostly people who have upgraded the original hard drive in their consoles over 500 GB. Here's the thread on Sony support:
http://community.us.plays...ate-to-4-45/td-p/40712247So you may want to hold off on updating if you have an upgraded HDD, and wait for a patch. Otherwise your only option is to reformat your entire HDD.
This sort of thing could be potentially a problem for the next-gen consoles. With the HDDs getting bigger and bigger, one bad firmware update, and suddenly you just lost 60+ games due to resetting your system, or worse, having to replace the console altogether. Makes me nervous.