I recently had one of my PS3 get the red blinking light. After searching the internet on recovering files from the hard drive I found out that this is not possible. I had the unit sent in for repair and was told that it was not repairable and that all data would be lost. I'm having them send it back to me.

I am desperate as my wife's camera got stolen from her old work and the only backups of those pictures were on the ps3. I had backed up the ps3 to a hard drive, but it must have been before I added those pics and videos as they were not there when I did the recovery on the new super slim. My wife Katie is 35 and dying of stage 4 breast cancer. The pictures and videos I am trying to recover are of the birth of my son and baby pictures and videos of him and his mother. I am so distraught on losing these forever. Her employer put up memo in hopes of someone turning it in, at least the memory card, but so far nothing.

If anyone knows of a way I can recover these files, please post.

Thanks,

Bob

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't think the HD swap will work because my firwares are different. I may try the heat gun/hair dryer thing, but I'm not too confident in that since the repair facility I sent it too said they could not fix it by reflowing.

Sony did send me a response back which I think is false information as I don't think anyone can take info off the hard drive due to the encryption, but this is what the sent me.

Hello Bob,

Thank you for contacting PlayStation® Technical Support, my name is Casey, and I will be assisting you today with your Hard Disk Drive (HDD) questions. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may of caused, I understand how frustrating it can be to loose such important data.

Unfortunately, this is not a service that we offer, although you may try third party sources. I would try contacting a local computer or electronics shop to transfer the data to a different device. Fortunately, it is possible to access the data with the correct hardware and software, but we are not capable of accessing your data due to security reasons. I do wish you the best of luck in recovering you data.

Thank you so much, Bob, for your time and understanding.

Sincerely,
Casey A.
PlayStation® Technical Support
1-800-345-SONY (7669)
http://us.playstation.com
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