PS3 users report 4.45 update locks up systems, may be tied to large HDDs (updated)

Planned to turn on your PS3 for some The Last of Us action tonight? According to a thread on the PlayStation Support forums, if you're prompted to install the latest firmware update version 4.45 then you may want to hold off for the moment. A number of owners are reporting their systems will no longer fully boot up after the update, although the problem may only affect users with hard drives installed that are 500GBs or larger. According to the changelog, it was supposed to allow users to select whether or not they want an in-game notification when a trophy is earned. If it is tied to user-replaced hard drives, then it wouldn't be the first time -- v3.41 resulted in a few corrupted PlayStation 3 drives a few years ago. Check the thread for more details, if we hear anything from Sony then we'll let you know when it's safe to press OK.

Update: It appears the update has been pulled and users are no longer being prompted to download it, but we still haven't received any official response from Sony on the situation.

Update 2: According to the PlayStation Europe Twitter account, Sony is aware of the problem, and has taken 4.45 offline to investigate the issue. There's a new thread in the forums for official info in FAQ form, however there isn't much else to say just yet.