Hitachi made a large portion of the world’s hard disk drives: Desktop hard disk drives such as Deskstars, laptop hard disk drives called Travelstars and enterprise class hard disk drives known as Ultrastars. Many of these were also OEM’d into other companies’ products. Hitachi/HGST also have one of the more interesting reliability stories in the storage industry. Here’s what tends to happen to a failed Hitachi drive and how it’s recovered.
If a Hitachi is spinning and still cannot be found, this is typically due to an error in firmware. If you are using the correct tools, this can be fixed. However, there is no software available to fix a “clicking” Hitachi. That has to go into a lab.
Hitachi makes three types of hard drive products: Deskstar (desktop drives); Travelstar (laptop drives); and Ultrastar (enterprise & NAS). All of these products were manufactured under the HGST name, a division later acquired by Western Digital. Because they were so widely used as OEM units, many devices (both laptops and external drives) branded under another company’s name may actually contain a Hitachi (HGST) product. Regardless of what the product is labelled, the method of recovering data from a Hitachi drive is standard. This can involve physical (mechanical) or electronic (including firmware) repair, and sometimes logical repair.
One fact about Hitachi drives specifically, is while most people view their “dead” drives as being completely non-functioning, many of them are simply experiencing a firmware problem that prevents them from functioning properly, which is very good news for recovery.
It is worth mentioning Hitachi’s history because it shows how far the company has come. In the early 2000s Hitachi acquired IBM’s hard drive manufacturing business. With this acquisition came some of the worst failing hard drives in history (IBM’s “Deskstar 75GXP” series). These hard drives gained such infamy that they even became known as “Deathstars”. However, under Hitachi’s leadership (and later HGST), the company turned things around. Large scale reliability tests have shown that HGST was ranked among the most dependable hard drives ever made.
The bottom line here is although Hitachi makes high quality drives, failure is inevitable. Therefore, when your Hitachi fails, it is treated just like any other failed drive.
Usual suspects. Firmware and service-area faults can prevent a physically healthy unit from being detected by the host computer. These units will spin as normal, but there is no indication they exist. Such issues are resolved using specialised equipment rather than mechanical repair. Failed heads, head crashes, seized motors and bad sectors are all considered physical problems and indicated through symptoms such as a click or buzz and/or slow down. Repair involves installing matching donor parts.
Travelstar laptop drives have had their fair share of drop damage and, as with any hard drive, when a Hitachi begins to make unusual noises it must be turned off immediately to avoid damaged heads scoring the platter.
Many users seek “Hitachi hard drive recovery software” or discover their Hitachi hard drive recovery not working (this includes external Hitachis and bare units in USB caddies) and then realise that it doesn’t work. Why? Recovery software only works on a logically-healthy drive. Software can recover deleted or formatted files from a disk that still works, however it cannot repair a disk that has failed due to physical problems. If your Hitachi drive is clicking or does not show up, or makes noise, this is indicative of a hardware problem and software has nothing to do with this type of issue; worse, running recovery software continues to keep a failing drive spinning which could result in additional damage.
In the case where the software you’ve downloaded does not recognise your Hitachi drive, this is not a matter of finding a different piece of software to use: it’s an indicator of a hardware problem that requires a lab. Stopping here helps save the data.
The path taken addresses the root cause of the problem: firmware/service-area repair to allow an un-detectable disk to communicate with the host computer; donor part replacement when necessary for mechanical failure; file-system rebuilding to repair logical corruption, then creating an image of the disk to recover data from the created image instead of reading the original disk as many times as necessary.
The “firmware” characteristics of Hitachi drives are beneficial for this reason: a dead Hitachi is generally a better candidate for recovery than other types of failure, as it’s often an error in the operating code rather than a defect in the hardware that prevents access to the data. Before any repair process begins, the diagnostic will identify what type of failure you’re experiencing.
These are the questions we receive most commonly regarding Hitachi recovery.
Generally yes. A Hitachi drive that spins, yet cannot be detected by the computer normally indicates a firmware/service area failure. In many cases the service area failure occurs due to a faulty internal operational code preventing the drive from announcing itself to the computer. However, this does not mean there is anything wrong physically with the drive. Instead, using specialised tools to restore the service area can resolve the issue without requiring any physical repairs. When a drive also clicks while attempting to spin-up, it means that the read/write heads on the drive have likely failed and require replacement. Regardless of whether there is a physical repair required (i.e., fitting donor heads) or simply restoring the service area (repairing the firmware), the data should still exist on the platters.
Software can only correct logic errors within a working drive: it cannot repair hardware issues. Therefore, when a Hitachi drive fails physically (i.e., clicks, isn’t detected, etc.) the drive requires manual assessment in order to determine the extent of the damage (failing head(s), failing motor, failing firmware). Any attempt to run software on a failing Hitachi drive will continue to keep the drive spinning and could potentially cause further damage. Additionally, any attempted use of software-based diagnostics on a failing Hitachi drive will be ineffective at reaching the root of the issue. Failing Hitachi drives require a laboratory environment with proper testing equipment in order to properly diagnose and/or repair.
Modern Hitachi drives are some of the most reliable drives available today. This represents a major change from the days of the older IBM Deskstar drives. Unfortunately, as dependable as modern Hitachi drives may be, they can still fail, just like any other. When a Hitachi fails, they are usually recovered using the standard procedure. These procedures include: firmware repairs for undetectable failures, replacing parts of the drive for mechanical issues and then imaging and recovering whatever data was stored on the drive. Even though Hitachi drives are considered reliable, if they do fail, they are very likely to be recoverable.
Your drive may have experienced a firmware failure, head damage, or a logical error, but where the fault is physical there is nothing software will do to help. We offer a complimentary diagnostic service so we can determine whether the damaged area of your drive is recoverable. If you prefer to send your drive to us instead of dropping it off at our Belfast location, you can post it to our laboratory from anywhere in Northern Ireland.