Do you know what caused it to brick? You said it was never hacked, and a collapse of the system most likely happened because he was updating the Official Firmware, downloaded from Sony, and the power was cut, system was reset, memory card was removed, or the update file was corrupt (rare), during the install process. That causes the install to be corrupt, and thus, a brick. Sure, it can be unbricked, unless there is another problem, besides the obvious. If you want, if you still have it, send it to me, and I will try to fix it for you, free of course.