EHD / Every kind of external drive / Games console drives

Seagate Game Drive · WD_BLACK P10 and D10 · Xbox · PlayStation

Games console external drives. The saves are what matter, and the console decides what can be read.

Seagate's Game Drive for Xbox and PlayStation and WD's WD_BLACK P10 and D10 are ordinary external drives in branded cases: a Rosewood 2.5-inch drive in the Seagate portables, a WD drive in the P10, a 3.5-inch desktop drive in the D10 and the Game Drive Hub. Any other external drive a console has formatted for itself is the same story. What is different is what the console did to the data. An Xbox formats its external drives in a proprietary layout tied to the console; PlayStation 4 and 5 extended storage is encrypted to the console. Game installs are worth nothing recovered, because they are downloaded again; save games, screenshots and captures are what people want, and those usually live on the console's internal drive or in the cloud rather than on the external. We say honestly at the free look what is on the drive and what can be read. One console drive is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing.

Free first lookOne fixed figure in writingNo data, no bill on most jobsReturn postage paid

Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668

Console drive symptoms, and what each means.

Not listed? Describe it on the form →

The console no longer recognises itThe drive, or the console's own format check. The free look tells which.Everyday job

It clicks or beepsHeads. The same as any external drive; unplug it.Do not delay

It was formatted for the console and you want the files from beforeFormatting destroyed the old partition table, not the old data. Possible, if it has not been filled since.Everyday job

It was used for a PC after the console, or the reverseTwo layouts written over each other. What survives is what was not overwritten.Everyday job

Packing it and posting it: leave the drive in its own case, unopened, and do not take the drive out of a WD My Passport or My Book, because the board it is fixed to holds the encryption key. Wrap the whole unit in bubble wrap inside a box with nothing able to move, send the mains adapter with a desktop drive, insure it for what the files are worth rather than the price of the drive, and use a tracked service. The posting address is not printed anywhere on this site; it arrives by email in reply to the form, with a booking sheet to print; the sheet inside the parcel is what matches it to your enquiry when it is opened. Or hand the sealed parcel in at the nearest of ten drop-off points, your name on the outside and the sheet inside; say where you are on the form and it comes by email. We pay the postage home either way. The whole of it is written up on the guide to packing and posting.

Console by console, and what the format allows.

Xbox One and Series X|SThe external is formatted in the console's own layout and readable by that console and, with some tools, by others. Games are re-downloaded; captures and saves sync to the account. The drive itself is recovered as an ordinary drive.

PlayStation 4 and 5Extended storage is encrypted to the console, and PS5 games in the PS5 partition likewise. The drive can be imaged and put back to the same console; the files are not readable elsewhere. Saves live on the internal drive or in PS Plus cloud.

Seagate Game Drive portable and HubRosewood drives in the portable, Barracuda-class in the Hub. Ordinary Seagate failures, including stuck heads after a fall.

WD_BLACK P10 and D10A WD drive in a gaming case. No encryption of WD's own on the P10 and D10, unlike My Passport.

What the console says, and what it means.

Describe yours to us →

What is going on	The usual reason for it	Where that leaves you
Console says the drive is not recognised or needs formatting	Drive fault, or the console's format has been disturbed	Free look; do not format
Drive clicks when the console powers it	Heads	Head work; then back to the same console
PS5 drive read on a PC shows unknown partitions	Console encryption	Imaged and returned to that console; not readable on a PC
Files from before the console formatted it	Old data under a new partition table	Carve of the unwritten areas

From the box arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

A case number goes on it the day the parcel is opened, and an engineer settles what has actually failed before anything else happens. A drive that clicks or beeps is not powered again; one that spins is read on our own imaging equipment, never in a computer that will retry and time out and retry. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNo hopeful power-ons

The enclosure and its board

Every external drive is two things: the drive, and the USB board that talks to it. The board is checked first, because a failed bridge, a snapped socket or a dead regulator is the whole fault on a good share of jobs, and because on WD's encrypted drives the board holds the key. Where the drive itself has stopped, it comes out of its case onto the bench.

Bridge, socket and power checked firstWD keys kept with their boards

The mechanics, in clean air

A console drive is imaged like any other, and where the console's format is intact the image goes back onto a working drive for the same console. Where the drive held ordinary files before a console took it over, the image is searched for what the console has not yet written over.

Head and spindle work on a clean benchFirmware and service-area repair

A full image, then the volume

Nothing is worked on live. The whole drive is imaged once, head by head and weak areas last, with reads timed to what the platters can stand, and the file system is put back together on the image. Encrypted volumes are unlocked there too, with the original board's key or the password you supply, and never on the original.

One careful image, head by headThe volume verified end to end

You see the file list before you pay

What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the job3–4 days at the bench

What arrives most often

Game installs are not worth recovering. They are downloaded again for nothing. Saves, captures and screenshots are worth the job, and usually live on the console's internal drive or in the cloud rather than on the external.
PlayStation encrypts extended storage to the console. We can image the drive and return it to the same console on a new drive; we cannot read the files on a PC, and neither can anyone else.
Xbox's format is the console's own. The drive is recovered as a drive and returned in the same format for the same console.
A drive formatted by a console still holds what was on it before, until the console fills it. If the files that matter are from before, say so, and do not use the drive.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · EHD-2026-0477JOB LOGGED ✓

A Seagate Game Drive for Xbox that had been the family's photo drive first

The drive had held ten years of photographs before a teenager formatted it for the console, which is why it came here. The console had written about 300GB over the old volume; the rest was untouched. The old NTFS file system was reconstructed from what survived and the photographs carved from the unwritten areas. Most came back; the ones under the new games did not, and the family was told which.

81% of the photographs recovered4 days here, and back by post

Illustrative example — replace with a genuine case

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

Stop using it the moment you realise
Tell us which console formatted it, and when
Say whether the files you want are from before or after
Send it whole with its lead and adapter

What sets us back

Letting the console format it again
Filling it with new games first
Expecting PS5 files to be readable on a PC
Opening the case

Questions answered before you commit.

Can you recover my PS5 games and saves from the external drive?

The drive can be imaged and returned to the same console, but PlayStation encrypts extended storage to the console, so the files cannot be read anywhere else. Saves usually live on the internal drive or in PS Plus cloud, and games are re-downloaded free.

Can you recover an Xbox external drive?

Yes, as a drive: heads, board, firmware, the usual work. Games are re-downloaded; saves sync to your account. The recovered image goes back in the console's format.

The console formatted a drive that had my photos on it. Are they gone?

Not necessarily. Formatting replaced the partition table; the old data survives until the console writes over it. Stop using the drive and send it.

What does it cost?

£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

Seagate →Western Digital →Deleted or formatted →Portable 2.5-inch →

Nothing gets worse while it is unplugged.

Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the drive unplugged.

0800 6890668

Price my job Packing and posting

Every kind of external drive

Manufacturers

Whatever it is doing now

What it costs, and what follows