PS3 down but not out...
 

I bought a phat ps3 this weekend for $10 knowing the bluray drive was shot, I came home looked it over the FW is at 2.71 which im not to worried about that. I upgraded the FW to 3.55 and tried 3 times trying to put 3.55 kmeaw on it with no luck... If I was to buy a new complete drive and swap the drive boards it should be able to fix the bluray drive problem I hope, but Im just curious why the FW wouldnt upgrade...

You can use "PS3MFW Builder" to patch the firmware so that it will install with the drive being broken. You can try that and then worry about the drive later.

You bought a PS3 for $10? Damn, GREAT deal!

What model may I ask and what was the condition like aside from the blu-ray drive?

Regardless though, $10 is amazing and on FW 2.71!

Congrats.

aye, the reason kmeaw won't install is due to the shot blue ray drive... As said above you can patch it with ps3mfwbuilder and remarry a drive later : ) good luck

Actually if the BD drive is the cause of the error when trying to update firmware, it means the logic board is dead and you'll need a new one.
What's the model of the PS3 and what error code do you get when trying to update?

Sorry everyone been busy, The Ps3 is model # CECHH01. I was getting an error code but I hooked the busted bluray drive back up before I started to update. I was able to get it to update to 3.55 but was not able to get it to update to 3.55 kmeaw. I tried to update it by the recovery menu and the xmb but all it does is start the update runs up to 100% then restarts and is still on 3.55.
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The condition is perfect minus the drive, I can pickup 3 more for $25 all have the same problem, but I can fix all of them for cheaper than you can buy 1 new...

If it got to 100% are you sure that Kmeaw was not installed? Is the an install package option on the XMB some where, most likely in the game tab?

Yea because when I go into the system info it still shows 3.55 and not 3.55 kmeaw, and there isnt an install package icon. I had my PS3 with cfw but wanted to go back to ofw and that when I found this PS3 for cheap and knew it could be fixed and then put cfw on it so I could have one with ofw and one with cfw...

even if u on kmeaw cfw or rebug etc it will still say 3.55 in the system info , it wont tell you what fw your on apart from the 3.55 part

As @carldenning says, it only shows 3.55Kmeaw when you are installing it. Once done it just shows as 3.55.

Try installing some homebrew apps and that will prove it one way or another :)