And even then is uncertain is to find another on ebay and swap the memory (drive or such) into a working unit. It's not a sure thing. At least you would only lose what you didn't backup.
Bob
I have been looking forever to find an at-home fix to retrieve video from our handycam. It was dropped and now displays an hdd error 31:00 code. When usb connected to the computer, the external disk does not show any files. Sometimes it says disk not recognized due to I/O error. I do not want to format because I have video of my children from just being born- now. Sending to sony for service is not an option as they will not guarantee my videos being recovered and the cost is $300 so i might as well buy a new one. My husband will not pay for me to take it to someone to recover the video. I have tried resetting and this does not help. i have downloaded PMB and the camera is not recognnized. Please help me recover this video to my pc.

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