I have a HDR-1000S which has locked up and I can't even do a factory default. Humax support say I can send it to them (out of warranty) and they will charge me £160 to get it working again which will involve wiping the hard drive.
For £40 more I can buy a new one from amazon. Now, If I remove the hard drive from the bad pvr and mount it on a caddy it should be possible to copy the files to an external hard drive.
If this works, can I get the new pvr to play the files if I plug the external HD into the USB port on the front of the unit?