There has been alot of reports of "bricked" PS3's with the latest firmware, on the various US Playstation Forums.
Sony has been reported to have made this statement regarding this much heated topic:
Quote:
“We apologise for any inconvenience you are experiencing with upgrading internal HDD on your PS3,” it told Examiner. “The information available to our Consumer Services Department does not suggest that this is a problem PlayStation owners are likely to experience when upgrading the HDD with 3.41 update.
“SCEA strongly supports the quality of its products and backs them with full confidence. We ask that you update the previous HDD first to see if the update will go through. Then update from the thumb drive that is formatted in FAT 32 and has the 3.41 update downloaded.”
Personally I have see this myself, I have yet be able to replace the HDD, on a PS3 since this update, only been able to fully unbrick the PS3 unit, by wiping clean their original HDD that came with the unit since this update.