The 8 track DP-03SD is a very good unit and competes well with the DP24/32 in my opinion and unless you do live recording or have a dedicated home studio, it beats the socks off the Model 16/24. I am one that truly enjoys stand alone digital recorders and Tascam seems to be my favorite brand. I don't currently have a DP-03 but do have a DP-004 and DP-24. I had several cassette Portastudios and also the Neo2488MKII. Never had a crash with any of them.

I agree with the others to restart from scratch rather than attempt a repair. They've given you good advice and the only thing I'd advise you regarding mixdown and mastering on the hardware is the reminder that during these actions, the channel meters display the recorded audio on the track and not the fader position as it does during track recording. The OL lights indicate input and not track levels so there may not be clipping to any of the individual recorded tracks. The effects you use during mixing and mastering effects all add gain to the mix. EQ, compression, reverb are all cumulative gain. Leave plenty of headroom on your tracks before you do your mix.

BIAB Ultra Pak+ 2024:RB 2024, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.