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PDR / The jobs we take in / Hitachi data recovery

Specialist · Hitachi and HGST mechanisms

Hitachi data recovery in Plymouth. A family tree, not one single drive; the model code on the label tells us what is on the bench.

Hitachi disks arrive from throughout Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall, and they tend to be older than most of what comes through our doors. There are Travelstars pulled out of laptops, Deskstars from desktops and from inside external cases, Ultrastars from servers and NAS units, and occasionally a CinemaStar from a recorder. The badge has passed through two owners (IBM sold its disk division to Hitachi, and Hitachi sold its division to Western Digital), so the label could say Hitachi, HGST or neither. Please tell us the model number and the MLC code next to it.

Nothing readable? Most jobs carry no bill Free diagnosis, then one written price Boxes come to the lab from Truro, Newquay and Tavistock

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Hitachi symptoms, and what each points to.

Yours not here? Start at the triage →
What turns upWhat that points toWhere to start
A Travelstar ticking in a laptopHeads going bad. The recording underneath remains intactPower it down and leave it
Listed by the BIOS, size 0GBA broken service area. The recording surfaces are unharmedBench work through a serial link
An Ultrastar a PC will not listEnterprise sectors are not 512 bytes, so a desktop won't take themUsually recoverable
A Deskstar slowing month by monthSectors attempted again and again as the heads lose strengthTake a copy off it now
An Ultrastar has dropped out of an arrayOne member is down. Rebuilding onto a failing disk just compounds the damageHalt the rebuild and ring
A Touro external has gone quietTouro cases hold a Travelstar or a Deskstar insideTell us which case it is
Getting it to us: once you receive your quote, wrap it securely so it cannot shift in transit, insure it for its value, and send it tracked to the intake lab in Bristol. We cover the return postage. If you want an engineer to check the packing before the box is taped shut, contact us before sending. Details are on our contact page.

What is actually sitting beneath the badge, and how each one fails.

Travelstar, in laptops and casesThe 2.5in mechanism, and most of what comes through here. For many years it sat in laptops and after that in external cases, often with a USB board soldered directly onto it. When one of these starts ticking it means the heads are shot, and what follows is matched donor parts and a long, patient copy.
Deskstar, and the IBM lineThe 3.5in desktop drive, and the oldest part of the range: IBM built the first hard disk, sold the business to Hitachi, and Hitachi later sold it to Western Digital. Labels from all three companies turn up on the bench. An ageing Deskstar is losing head strength, and gets slower and slower as it does.
Ultrastar, and CinemaStarThe drives built for one setting: Ultrastar for servers, arrays and NAS boxes, and CinemaStar for recorders. In most cases when either of these fails, there are multiple disks involved in an array.
The service areaEach of these disks holds its own working data on the platters, including a translation table mapping a block number to a physical location. Once that is damaged, a mechanically sound disk reports 0GB, reports the wrong size, or just spins and says nothing. Since the drive never finishes starting up, none of the tools you can run on a PC will reach it. The repair is done over a serial connection at the bench.

What happens to a drive while it is here.

01

A number on arrival, then the free diagnosis Free

Whatever is delivered is booked in using a unique reference (case number) on the date it arrives at the bench. The engineer will identify the actual fault at no charge. This gives a straightforward answer on what can be recovered from the drive and what cannot, plus one written quotation. There will be no further activity until you have read and accepted the quotation.

Diagnosis at no chargeA single written figureYou owe nothing yet
02

Listened to before it is opened

No computers are involved at this point. We photograph the disk, copy the model number and MLC codes from the label, and apply a bench supply for a few seconds to listen to it. A tick, a beep and silence each mean something different. A ticking drive is switched straight off again.

Photographed as it landsWhich part has failed
03

Imaged before it is opened

We copy the entire surface of the disk first, and everything afterwards is done on that image. Weak zones are taken in short passes, with the worst areas left until the end; on older Travelstars this can take days. Your original disk is never written to; the wear is spent on the copies.

Copied before any repairYour disk stays untouched
04

Heads, or the service area

Which of the two it is decides the work. If the heads are damaged, we replace them with a matched stack with the same model number, firmware revision and build code. The read after the replacement is very slow. A damaged service area is a different job: each module is mended individually across a serial link without the lid ever being opened.

Donor heads matched to the buildService area over serial
05

You give the word, and it ships back

Give yourself time to consider it. It costs you nothing. We list all of the files we recover for you before sending out an invoice, and we only ask for payment once you have authorised it. We also buy media specifically for your recovery and send it back to you, with the return postage paid by us. The case stays here on our bench until we have your confirmation that the files open properly on your own machine.

You see the list and decideWritten to fresh mediaWe pay the postage home

The faults we see most

  • Travelstars are what get posted in: 2.5in Hitachi mechanisms from laptops, and from external cases where a USB board was soldered directly onto them. They tick because the heads are worn out. Software cannot fix that, and every attempt to power one up again does a little more damage to the surface.
  • A disk that shows 0GB has not been wiped: what it has lost is the directory to its own data, and the platters still hold everything they held the day before. Since a PC can't reach a drive that never manages to identify itself, the job runs over a serial connection instead. It is among the steadier work we take on.
  • Sealed helium drives get one opening: the larger Ultrastars are filled with helium and welded shut, and that seal cannot be restored afterwards. So the whole read is planned before the cover comes off, and the mechanism is treated as having a single working life left in it.
  • Photograph the label: each Hitachi or HGST label carries a model number, a part number and an MLC build code. All three matter on a head replacement, because a donor must match the build as well as the model. If an external case hides the label, read out what is printed on the outside of the case and leave the rest to us.

What may come back and what will not: most Hitachi problems are fairly ordinary. Heads wear out and are replaced. A service area fails and is repaired over a serial link. Given enough time, a worn-out drive can be read. The surface is where we have to be blunt. Heads that have already been dragged over the platters leave scoring, and a scored track holds nothing, regardless of how much a laboratory charges to try. Overwriting works the same way: after a format and a month of normal use, part of the data is gone for good. If a drive sits behind hardware encryption we will need the password, because the encryption is doing exactly what it was designed to do. We do not take phones or tablets. And if we cannot help, you are told by phone and it costs nothing.

A job out of the casebook.

PL · PLY-2026-0841FILED ✓

A Deskstar that reported the wrong size

It came from a surveying practice in Truro: a 1TB Deskstar from a desktop. It worked perfectly well on the Friday but showed 0GB by the Tuesday. It spun and sounded right, but every machine gave its capacity as 0GB. The problem was in the service area rather than the mechanism: the drive was stalling before it could finish identifying itself. The lid stayed on. The drive was wired directly to the bench, and each module was read and repaired individually until it reported its correct size again. The first pass copied every sector. Three days from parcel to return.

100% imaged3 days start to finish

Before you seal the box.

Get these done

  • Send the drive with its original case, lead and power supply
  • Tell us the model number and MLC code shown on the label
  • Tell us what you heard: a tick, a beep or silence
  • Tell us if the lid has already been off

What to avoid

  • Powering a ticking drive up to check again
  • Turning a surface scan loose on a weak disk
  • Flashing new firmware in the hope it helps
  • Fitting the board onto a different mechanism

Questions that come up most weeks.

My Hitachi drive makes ticking noises. Are there files left on it?

Yes, almost always. Ticking means the heads are not settling where they should: the arm moves, tries to settle again, and moves again. The noise belongs to the mechanism and not to your files. What was recorded on the platters is still recorded there. The catch is that nothing can read it while those heads are in place, and every extra spin-up sweeps the worn heads back across the coating. Turn it off, keep it off, and let the bench take the image.

Do the codes printed on the label actually matter?

A great deal. The model number identifies the family, the capacity, the form factor and the number of platters inside, and between them these decide how long a copy will take. On a head job, the MLC build code narrows the search for donor parts, since a stack must come from the same model and a close production batch. An external case hides the label, so read us whatever is printed on the outside; the rest can wait until your parcel arrives.

Can you recover data from an Ultrastar taken out of a server or storage array?

Usually, yes. An Ultrastar is just another hard disk, and when one fails we repair and copy it in the normal way. The difference is in the format. Many enterprise disks use sectors that are not 512 bytes (4K native, or extra bytes added to every sector for the controller's own checks), and a desktop PC won't accept those. We read them on their own terms and then work from the image. If the disk was part of an array, label the disks by bay before they travel.

What should I send, and where should it go?

Get a quote first, then send the disk. An external travels complete, with its case, cable and power supply. Disks taken out of a desktop, server or NAS travel bare: first in an antistatic bag, then in a padded box so that nothing rests against the board. For a NAS, remove the disks and number each one by its bay as it comes out; if the disks cannot be removed, send the whole NAS. We do not take phones or tablets. There is no collection service, so send it insured and tracked to the Bristol intake lab, or drop it in there, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed.

Pages people open after this.

Disks inside a PC → What the noise means → The PC cannot see it → All the media we take →

A drive that stays switched off gets no worse.

Diagnosis costs nothing. We give you a report listing which files can be read, which cannot, and what is needed to get them off. Do not connect the drive until then.

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