PlayStation 4 repair and data recovery

PS4, PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro: blue light faults, HDMI, overheating, hard drives and disc drives.

What goes wrong

A PS4 that pulses blue and never turns white has failed its start-up checks. Owners call it the blue light of death. The cause ranges from a failing hard drive to a fault on the motherboard, and finding which is the whole job.

After years of use, most PS4s are also loud. Dust packs the heatsink, the thermal paste dries, and the fan runs flat out until the console shuts itself down with an overheating warning. A proper service fixes that.

Repairs

Blue light, no picture

The hard drive, power supply and motherboard are tested in turn to find the real cause.

HDMI port and HDMI chip

Bent or broken sockets are replaced. If the port is sound, the HDMI chip behind it is replaced.

Overheating and fan noise

Full strip-down, heatsink and fan cleaned, new thermal paste.

Hard drive

A failing drive is replaced, or copied to a new one so that everything on it is kept.

Disc drive

Discs not accepted or ejected at random. Mechanism and laser are repaired, keeping the original drive board.

No power

Power supply and board-level power faults.

Your saves and data

The PS4 has an ordinary 2.5-inch hard drive, but everything on it is encrypted with a key held by that particular console. The drive cannot be read in a computer or in a different PS4.

When the drive is failing but the console is healthy, we copy the drive sector by sector to a new one and refit it. The console then starts with your saves, captures and settings intact. When the console is dead but the drive is healthy, the console is repaired. Saves backed up to PlayStation Plus or a USB drive are safe either way.

Sending a console

Take out any disc or game card, and remove memory cards you want to keep at home.
Send the console itself and its power lead. Controllers are only needed if they are part of the fault.
Box it with at least 5cm of padding on every side. The original box alone is not enough protection.
Add a note with your name, phone number and what the console does. Include your sign-in PIN if one is set.

We collect by insured courier from anywhere in the UK, or you can bring it to the workshop in London SE1. Every repair starts with a free assessment and a fixed price, and carries a 3-month warranty. See console repair prices and how the courier service works.

Common questions

Can you get the saves off a PS4 hard drive without the console?

No. The data can only be decrypted by the original console, so the console is needed, working or repaired.

My PS4 says it cannot start and wants to initialise. Should I?

Not if you want what is on it. Initialising wipes the drive. Switch it off and contact us first.

Get a price from a technician

Tell us the make, the model and what has gone wrong. A technician replies with a price and the quickest way to get your laptop to us – normally the same working day.

020 7237 6805

Creative IT workshop
Unit 1, 80 Willow Walk, London SE1 5SY
Monday to Saturday, 9am–6pm