HGST Data RecoveryH HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) is considered the manufacturer with the most reliable hard drives in the world, according to BackBlaze.

Hitachi / HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) drives, since 2012, have been financially affiliated with WD (though the technology and architecture of the drives remain Hitachi / HGST).

It is worth noting that after the acquisition of HGST by Western Digital, HGST technology was also assimilated, resulting in us now seeing HGST internal drives inside Western Digital enclosures, with Western Digital stickers but HGST hard drives!
We also see hard drives with Helium (He+), an HGST patent, now being released with a Western Digital sticker.
With this move, Western Digital has added the excellent quality HGST drives to its arsenal, delivering a significant blow to the competition.

It should also be noted that HGST was the first company to manufacture hard drives with Helium (He). The reason for using Helium gas is the fact that it causes less friction compared to oxygen, thus solving the density problem. This way, HGST engineers managed to store more data in the same space, and since then, drives with capacities greater than 8TB use helium inside.

HGST Drives most common problems:

HGST Data Recovery He-The most common problem with HGST drives is with the heads and is usually due to drop. The good news is that the quality of HGST platters is very good, so we can usually recover data even from extreme damages of this type.

If your drive is exhibiting such problems, then Northwind Data Recovery can recover your data. In our laboratories in both Athens and Thessaloniki, we have fully equipped Clean Rooms, which allow us to intervene in the interiors of these drives and take the necessary actions to recover their data. Northwind Data Recovery has a stock of more than 30,000 hard drives, enabling us to find the necessary part for recovery, even from the rarest drive.

HGST hard drives also tend to suffer failures in the firmware zone of the hard drive, making access to its data impossible.
Typically, when this happens, the drive will freeze for a few seconds as the BIOS tries to recognize it.
Afterward, the drive may be recognized correctly, not at all, or be recognized with the wrong name and capacity.
If recognized correctly, its performance will have dramatically decreased before the drive completely fails. In this case, the data may not be accessible and I/O error messages may appear.
If recognized incorrectly, you may see zero or incorrect capacity. If you try to start your computer from such a drive, you should see errors such as “Primary Master Hard Disk Fail” or “No operating system found” or “S.M.A.R.T. Capable But Command Failed” or “Disk boot failure. Insert system disk and press enter” or “Hard drive not recognized” or “Drive Mount Failure” or something similar. In all these cases, we can recover data from your drive.

HGST Drives are damaged when:

In HGST drives, it is possible that as soon as they spin up, the heads start clicking from the beginning. Most of the time, this is a sign of damaged heads. Unlike the behavior of drives from other companies, HGST drives with head damage do not spin down but continue to spin.

If this is the case, it is very important to run proper diagnostics on the drive to rule out the possibility that the problem is due to a firmware error, which could also cause clicking.
The heads normally park on a special ramp outside the platter area, but often after an error or improper shutdown, they fail or can’t make it on-time to return to the ramp and get stuck on the surface.
Immediately after the spin down, the heads stick to the surface and it is impossible to release them without the proper equipment and necessary experience.
Do not open the drive yourself – you will damage the platters and the drive will be unrecoverable.
Finally, a classic problem of these drives (like all other drives from all manufacturers) is Bad Sectors. After a certain period, the platters where data is written start to wear out (“degradation”) and bad sectors appear. When the drive tries to read such parts of the surface, it may freeze or make strange noises such as “scratching,” light ticks, or loud noises. Once the drive starts exhibiting such symptoms, it is very important to immediately stop the drive and send it to us for a free diagnosis.
Any further attempts you make will add to the problems the drive already has and reduce the number of recoverable data.
In its laboratory, Northwind Data Recovery uses expensive and specialized cloning tools that can bypass the damaged parts of the surface and read the healthy data.