So I recenly needed to open my ps3 and due a full strip down and clean. Let me say I thought it was dirty but woah it was...

you know sounds a lot light red light of death but slightly deiiferent. My only suggestion is that there is way to solder the tristate to ground or sbe on mobo. I believe this should allow the ps3 to stay on but you are gonna wanna google or check some ps3 forums for solder points ps3devwiki has a lot of info just putting that one out there. I know this works for hardware flasher e3 nor flash but you solder to the ribbion cable provided with flasher but the same point on ribbon is also on mobo. have you tried putting your hdd back in ps3 only ask cause you didnt say if you tried it or not. You didnt clarify if your friends ps3 was working only that hdd was fixed.