Working in tech support (computers though, not consoles) I've never heard of any software being able to damage hardware, other than urban legends regarding viruses from way back in the day, and even those seemed to be closer to causing data corruption rather than hardware errors. You said you've had it for three years, it could be a matter of the hardware simply wearing out. Sony does seem to be susceptible to disk read errors in their hardware. Your best bet I would think would be to check with your local used game stores. Many of them will fix it just as well for far less than the manufacturer.