SKY+ box hard drive fail - any way to fix/replace the disc?

[Rak5a]

I know that it's end of life but we can't upgrade to SkyQ because we have a large household and 4 active tv watchers simultaneously is not uncommon so SkyQ won't work for us. Also 2 of the watchers are elderly and can't fathom any change!

Anyway, one of our Sky+ HD boxes has a hard disc failure and even though we have a spare box, we can no longer swap the card. So it seems our only choice is to see if we can get the existing box repaired. Is that a thing? 

[Mark39]

Not through Sky (you probably knew that). I imagine there are still some local electronic repair companies that can do the job. There's also Digirepairs who have been around for a while (I have  no connection with them). It probably won't be cheap. Or you could do it yourself, though reportedly access to the hard disk isn't easy.