Hitachi (and its HGST disk unit) built a huge slice of the World’s Hard Drives. The Desktops were called Deskstars; the Laptops were called Travelstars; and the Enterprise drives were called Ultrastars. Many were manufactured for use by other companies as well. Hitachi has one of the most unusual reliability stories in Storage. Here’s a description of what happens when a Hitachi Drive Fails and How It Is Recovered.
If a Hitachi drive just spins and doesn’t seem to be detected, it’s probably a firmware problem; it can be recovered with the right tools. There are no software solutions to fix a clicker; those need to go into a lab.
Hitachi has made hard disk drives for desktops (Deskstar), laptops (Travelstar) and enterprise and network-attached-storage applications (Ultrastar) all under its HGST division which was later purchased by Western Digital. So many different companies bought Hitachi hard disks as OEM products that if your notebook or external hard disk of another brand fails, you may find a Hitachi internal hard drive. Recovery from failure on Hitachi drives can be done using the same four basic methods as with any other type of spinning disk: mechanical, electronic, firmware, or logical.
The biggest Hitachi-specific thing to remember about these “dead” units is that many of them aren’t really dead; they’re simply experiencing a bad firmware experience. That means there’s hope for recovering your data.
Hitachi’s journey has been interesting for one reason alone: Hitachi brought peace of mind. In the early 2000s, when Hitachi acquired IBM’s Hard Drive Business, they inherited IBM’s infamous “Deskstar 75GXP”, so prone to failure that it was nicknamed “Deathstar”. However, Hitachi (and later HGST), significantly improved these hard drives. As a result of this improvement, multiple large-scale studies have ranked HGST among the most dependable hard drives ever made.
Anyone with a failed Hitachi should keep this in mind: being reliable does NOT mean it will never fail. Even good quality Hard Drives will fail at some time. When they do, they get recovered just like all others.
The same common culprits exist. Firmware and service-area faults may render a perfectly healthy (mechanically) hard drive invisible to your PC: it appears to spin correctly, but the PC does not recognise it. These are usually recoverable with specialised tools instead of actual mechanical work. Mechanical failure (Failed heads, head crashes, seized motors and bad sectors) causes the drive to make unusual noises (clicking, buzzing, etc.), slow down, and/or become unusable. This type of failure is diagnosed and repaired by replacing with equivalent donor parts, on the bench.
Laptop Travelstar Hard Drives experience their fair share of drop damage too. Just like every Hard Drive out there, if your Hitachi makes strange noises, shut it OFF immediately so damaged heads do not scrape your platter(s).
Many folks search for “Hitachi hard drive recovery software”, or find their Hitachi hard drive recovery not working (whether using an external Hitachi or simply putting a bare drive into a USB Caddy) and they discover that the software doesn’t help. And here’s why: software designed for recovery only works on a logically-healthy drive: it can restore deleted/erased/formatted files from a functional Hitachi Hard Drive; however, software cannot fix a physically faulty Hard Drive. Therefore, if your Hitachi Hard Drive is clicking; won’t show up; making weird noises; THAT’S A HARDWARE PROBLEM, AND THERE IS NOTHING FOR SOFTWARE TO WORK WITH. Moreover, attempting to run recovery software on a malfunctioning Hard Drive continues to keep the failing Hard Drive spinning and increases the potential for additional damage to occur.
So, if your Hitachi Hard Drive is invisible to software, this is not a software issue requiring downloading yet another tool; this indicates a hardware problem which requires laboratory testing. By stopping now you protect your data.
This path will follow the fault: the firmware/service-area repair to get an “undetected” drive communicating again, donor part replacement for mechanical failures, and file-system rebuilding for logical corruption; after that we image the drive and recover from the copy so that the original is read as infrequently as possible.
In many ways Hitachi’s firmware characteristics are helpful in this regard: a ‘dead’ Hitachi is often one of the more recoverable failures since it is often the code (not hardware) that exists between you and your data. A diagnostic is performed prior to commencing any work to identify which case your failure falls into.
What do people generally enquire about regarding Hitachi Recovery?
Typically yes. A Hitachi drive that spins but does not appear to be detected likely has a firmware or service area issue; otherwise, there is nothing physically wrong with the drive. These issues are typically repairable using specialised tools that repair the service area without requiring mechanical intervention. If it is also clicking at the same time the heads may have failed. This type of failure is also repairable on the bench. In either scenario the data should remain on the platters.
Since software can only resolve logical errors on a good hard disk; it cannot repair a physical error. If your Hitachi drive is clicking, not appearing to be recognised by software, or producing other abnormal sounds/conditions, that indicates you have a hardware failure (failing heads/firmware/motor). Software cannot diagnose or repair these types of failures; lab equipment and technician skills are required. Do not run any software on a faulty Hitachi; it keeps a failing drive spinning and can make things worse. Have the device assessed in a lab environment.
The modern Hitachi hard drive is likely one of the most reliable that have been produced, a significant improvement over the reliability of many (but certainly not all) older models such as those from the IBM Deskstar line. However, no matter how well-made a hard drive may be, it will eventually fail at some point. And when an extremely reliable Hitachi fails, it is recovered using common recovery techniques; specifically firmware repair for non-physical errors, bench testing / replacement with donor parts for physical failures, followed by data imaging. A reliable Hitachi hard drive failing does not mean it can’t be recovered.
Firmware, heads or logical issues; physical faults cannot be fixed with software. Therefore, send us your damaged Hitachi and receive a complimentary diagnostic assessment to determine if there is anything worth recovering. Simply drop it off at our local Bristol drop-off location, or post it in to us from anywhere in the United Kingdom.