BD-P1500 Toasted, What fun things can I do?

[mike.w]

Hey all,

So I work for a retailer, and we had a customer who brought back a year old Samsung BD-P1500a. After diagnosing the dead unit due to a failed firmware update, I called the customer, and told them to contact Samsung for a replacement. They just said to toss the unit as they had recently purchased a PS3. I brought it home, and was wondering the following two questions:

1: Is there any way to restore the dead firmware? I'm not afraid to screw up a broken out of warranty unit I didn't pay for.
2: If not, is there something schweet I should make out of the laser?

Thanks all
Mike