OK, so it's not totally dead - that's good. Personally, I'd try using the official Sony updater on it and see how you get on. If you were previously running the 1.1 firmware, then you'll need to do a bit of tweaking, as otherwise it'll stop early as it's not set up to re-flash, just to update (although it does reflash fine!). The best guide for this is probably in Appendix C of Valloric's 1.2 PDF guide - downloadable
here.
Give that a go & let us know how you get on! There are other things to try if that doesn't work, but one thing at a time!