Sometimes even the most basic sounding issues with a hard drive can cause the data to be unrecoverable without specialized equipment and experience. This Hitachi hard drive recovery was one of those recoveries that sounded like the issue may require internal parts replacement, while in reality, the issue was just bad sectors.
Hitachi and Western Digital
A lot of people don’t realize that the hard drive portion of Hitachi was purchased by Western Digital in 2012. This drive is from after that merger, so this Hitachi drive was created by the Western Digital company. To talk about the merger, you have to go all the way back to 2012. For those of us old enough to still have the battle scars, this was a year after the floods that caused hard drive prices to skyrocket for a time.
In 2012, Western Digital Corporation announced that it would be acquiring Hitachi Global Storage Technologies in a deal worth $3.9 billion. The move marked a shift in the storage landscape, as Western Digital became the world’s largest hard drive manufacturer instead of Seagate.
The acquisition was driven by a number of factors. Firstly, it allowed Western Digital to gain a stronger foothold in the enterprise storage market. Secondly, it gave the company access to Hitachi’s highly regarded research and development team. Finally, the deal gave Western Digital a much-needed boost in the increasingly competitive storage market.
The acquisition was not without its challenges, however. Western Digital had to navigate a complex web of antitrust regulations in order to get the deal approved. Additionally, the company had to contend with the fact that Hitachi was a much larger company, with a workforce that was almost double the size of Western Digital’s.
Despite these challenges, the acquisition has been largely successful. Western Digital has been able to integrate Hitachi’s products and technology into its own portfolio, and the company has continued to thrive in the storage market.
Now that you know all about the history behind this “Hitachi” drive, let’s get on with the recovery.
Hitachi Hard Drive Recovery
This particular HTS725050A7E630 Hitachi hard drive recovery came in from a client that had already been to a local repair shop with their bad drive. They had reported that the hard drive was spinning up and sounding pretty normal, but the computer would not recognize the drive at all. When they plugged the drive into any computer, it would not show up.
The client had important photos as well as work emails that were only stored on this drive. The shop that they brought the drive to told them that while they would not be able to recover the drive, to try checking with us for an affordable lab recovery option. I discussed the drive with the client and they sent it over for our data recovery service.
Diagnosing the HTS725050A7E630 Hard Drive
The first step with any drive is to inspect it to verify the issue as well as the condition of the drive. For this Hitachi hard drive data recovery, I found that the main issue was bad sectors. There was also an issue with one of the heads reading data more slowly than it should. Finding this information required that I plug the drive into my PC-3000 and enter the correct utility for this model.
Running a heads test I saw that one of the heads was reading, but with more errors and much slower than the other heads. Doing a quick read test on the drive I saw that there were slow and bad sectors under every head, so the issue was both bad sectors as well as a weak head.
Cloning the bad Hitachi to a good hard drive
Once I had completed the diagnosis, the next step was to get the drive ready for cloning. Cloning a bad drive is the 3rd step in the usual data recovery process. The first step is diagnosing the drive issues, the second step is repairing the issues enough to be able to safely clone the sectors of the drive, and the third step is to clone the sectors from the failing drive onto a known good drive.
Before starting the cloning process you always want to set up the drive for optimal cloning. Data recovery companies usually call cloning the drive “Imaging”. To get the drive ready for cloning you turn off all the features of the drive that could possibly interfere. Like the feature of a drive that will notice a sector is bad or failing and mark it as such so it is not used. While that is a good feature during regular use, while cloning we just want the drive focused on getting back as many sectors as possible while causing as little stress as possible.
Successful Hitachi Hard Drive Data Recovery
I ended up running multiple cloning passes on this drive over the course of 4 days. I started with gentle, easy passes, to get back as much of the data as possible without stressing out the weak head. I slowly increased the difficulty of the passes until I had gotten back all the sectors possible. I ended up getting back over 99.99999% of the sectors on this drive, so it was a great success.
Running data recovery software on the clone of the bad drive brought back all the folder structure and file names. All the customer’s important data was recovered in a fully usable matter. I transferred all the recovered files to the customer’s new drive and let them know the Hitachi hard drive recovery was successful.
Because I did not have to replace the weak head inside the drive, this data recovery was covered under our affordable standard flat rate data recovery tier. The client was extremely pleased with the results as well as the price. They had thought they might need a Lab recovery, so they were excited to have all their important photos and emails back at a low price.
The best affordable data recovery service
I am proud to be able to offer affordable data recovery services to my neighbors around Kansas as well as to everyone in the country through my mail-in service. If you have a drive that needs to be recovered, please contact me with any questions, or fill out my recovery form to get started on the process.
I look forward to working with you to get your important data recovered, safe and sound. Thanks for reading!
Drive info: Hitachi 500GB 2.5 inch Hard Drive, HTS725050A7E630, P/N:5003272S7 H2T, HDD: Z7K500-500, P/N: H2T5003272S7, LI P/N: 42T1372, LC P/N: 16200195, MLC: DA4873 A, 0J26105
About Author
