Canvio Basics · Advance · Flex · Gaming · Ready · Desktop
A Toshiba Canvio that has stopped working is recovered here for £300 + VAT, fixed in writing first. Recent Canvio Basics drives have the USB socket soldered straight onto the drive's own circuit board, so there is nothing to unplug and try elsewhere; the work happens on that board, or by moving its ROM to a compatible SATA board. Toshiba's mechanics are sound, and the faults we see are the ordinary ones: a native board that has died, weak heads that make the drive ask to be formatted, a click after a fall. No Toshiba-specific event has been documented; the patterns are what matter. 3–4 days at the bench.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668
| Family | Models | Drive inside, and how it connects |
|---|---|---|
| Canvio Basics, recent | Basics 1–4TB, HDTB… prefixes | Toshiba MQ04 USB-native (MQ04UBF100, MQ04UBD200), no SATA connector |
| Canvio Basics, older; Connect; Alu | Earlier portables | Toshiba MQ01 SATA drive behind a separate USB board |
| Canvio Advance, Flex, Gaming, Ready | Current range, HDTC…, HDTX… prefixes | Toshiba MQ04-class; board type varies by revision |
| Canvio Desktop | 3.5-inch | Toshiba 3.5-inch SATA behind a separate board, mains |
| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Asks to format | Heads struggling with the start of the disk | Imaged slowly around the weak area; do not format |
| The computer freezes or crashes when it is plugged in | The drive hanging the USB bus while it retries bad reads | Unplug; image on the bench |
| USB device not recognised | The native USB board, or a drive not spinning up | Board repair, or a compatible SATA board with the ROM moved across |
| Clicking after a fall | Heads | Head work |
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The drive was hanging the USB bus while it retried bad reads at the start of the disk. Its native board was left in place, the drive brought up on the bench with its retries controlled, and it was imaged slowly around a damaged band over two nights. Everything except one video came back.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseCanvio Basics is not. Some Advance and Premium models offer password software; tell us if you used it.
On recent Basics models there is no connector to fit a caddy: the USB socket is on the drive's own board. Send it whole.
We found no Toshiba recovery service for consumer drives. The free look here costs nothing.
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing.
3–4 days at the bench after the free look.
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.