HD-B1 · HD-E1 · HD-SL1 · HD-PG5
Sony external hard drive recovery. A short run of portables, and ordinary drives inside.
A Sony-branded portable is recovered here for £300 + VAT, fixed in writing first. Sony sold a small range of portable drives between about 2011 and 2016, the HD-B1, HD-E1 and HD-SL1 among them, and they are 2.5-inch drives from Toshiba, Seagate or Samsung behind a Sony-badged bridge. They are legacy now, and they arrive with a dead bridge or a click. 3–4 days at the bench.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668
Models we see, family by family.
Which kind of drive is it →| Family | Models | Drive inside, and how it connects |
|---|---|---|
| HD-B, HD-E, HD-SL | Portables | 2.5-inch, separate USB board |
| HD-D1 | Desktop | 3.5-inch, bridge, mains |
What tends to go wrong on a Sony.
Sony symptoms, and how long each gives you.
Not listed? Describe it on the form →What the message means on a Sony.
Describe yours to us →| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Light on, spinning, not detected | The USB bridge or its regulator | Drive read directly on SATA; bridge beside the point |
| No light on a mains unit | The power adaptor | Adaptor replaced; drive usually fine |
| Clicking | Heads | Head work on the bench |
| Asks to format or shows as RAW | File system damage, or weak heads | Imaged and rebuilt on the image |
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.
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.
The mechanics, in clean air
Stuck or failed heads are replaced with a matched set from a donor, seized spindles freed, and firmware faults corrected in the drive's service area from the terminal. The drive is not repaired to be used again; it is made to read once, in a single careful pass, and that pass is planned before it begins.
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.
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.
From the bench
- The drive inside is somebody else's. Seagate, WD, Toshiba or, on older units, Samsung and Hitachi. The badge tells us the box; the drive inside decides the work.
- Send the box with the drive. Some bridges write the drive with their own sector translation, and it reads correctly only through the same bridge or once the translation is undone on the image.
- A dead bridge is the cheapest job we do. The drive comes out, reads on its own connector, and the box goes in the bin.
What helps, and what harms.
Do this much first
- Send it whole, with its lead and adaptor
- Photograph the label underneath
- Unplug it at the first click
- Tell us what was on it
What sets us back
- Initialising or formatting when asked
- Opening the case
- Running a repair tool
- Buying another box and trying the drive repeatedly
Questions answered before you commit.
Does Sony still support these drives?
The range was discontinued. The drives inside are recovered as their makers' drives.
Which drive is inside a Sony?
It varies by model and batch: Seagate, Western Digital or Toshiba on anything recent, sometimes Samsung or Hitachi on older units. The free look identifies it, and donor parts are matched to the drive, not the badge.
What does it cost?
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing before any chargeable work. On most jobs no data means no bill.
How long does it take?
3–4 days at the bench after the free look.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
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.