Taking photos from a YLOD'ed PS3 hdd?
 

So the PS3 got the yellow light of death, not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things.

But there are important family photos on the hdd. Can I buy one of those USB docks and copy the photos from the PS3 hdd to my laptop?

That should work. You could also pop the hdd into another ps3, too.

I think you should look into this in more detail.. I believe you are not able to access anything on the drive when connecting it externally to a computer.. I remember trying to do this for a buddy and nothing is accessible..

You may as well fix the YLOD on the PS3, it's not too complicated.

Keeping important data on only one drive is a pretty bad idea tho.

Just follow this video, I used it to fix peoples PS3's with this method. It temporarily fixes it, usually lasts 2 weeks. All you need is a heatgun, thermal paste and some screw drivers. Very simple to do, just follow the guide don't be afraid to try it. Good luck.

^ if you use no-clean flux properly, the fix can last a very long time. Just apply a liberal amount around the edges of the chips before you flow them from above, the heat will made it spread underneath. And DON'T use Arctic silver, I've seen it do more harm than good in inexperienced hands. Just be sure to apply a good, even, thin coat of any decent stuff and you'll be fine :-)

The flux I do agree helps a lot after the second time you fix it as I was repairing my PS3 for quiet some time . What makes you say that Arctic Silver 5 is a bad TIM. It was rated top TIM back in its day. There is better stuff out there now such as MX-4. Many computer enthusiast still use it in set-ups for overclocking. So I have no idea where you get your info from.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...&limitstart=12

Review second best article is 2 years old but the information is still fairly accurate as I keep up with this as a computer enthusiast.

The reason I suggest against AS for an inexperienced person is because it is conductive. Combine that with the fact that those same people tend to add too much of it and you can have some shorts. PS3's appear to use just normal compound and do just fine the majority of the time, so to err on the side of caution I always suggest using regular compound. If someone has used heatsink compound many times before and knows how to properly apply a nice thin layer, then by all means use AS.