Touro Mobile · Touro Desk · SimpleDrive · LifeStudio
Hitachi / HGST external hard drive recovery. Well-made drives from a brand that Western Digital absorbed in 2012.
A Hitachi or HGST external is recovered here for £300 + VAT, fixed in writing first. Western Digital bought Hitachi's hard drive business in March 2012 and ran it as HGST before folding it in; the Touro portables and desktops sold before and after hold Travelstar and Deskstar drives that were among the most reliable of their day. They arrive as legacy units now, with tired adaptors and bridges in front of drives that still read. 3–4 days at the bench.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668
Models we see, family by family.
Which kind of drive is it →| Family | Models | Drive inside, and how it connects |
|---|---|---|
| Touro Mobile, Touro S | Portables | Travelstar 2.5-inch, separate USB board |
| Touro Desk | Desktop | Deskstar 3.5-inch, bridge, mains |
| SimpleDrive, LifeStudio | Older | Travelstar or Deskstar, USB 2.0 bridge |
What tends to go wrong on a Hitachi / HGST.
Hitachi / HGST symptoms, and how long each gives you.
Not listed? Describe it on the form →What the message means on a Hitachi / HGST.
Describe yours to us →| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| No spin after years unused | Heads stuck to the platter, or a seized spindle | Freed on the bench; read once |
| No modern port for the box | FireWire or eSATA host missing | Drive read directly |
| Supply hums or smells | Dried-out capacitors | Do not use it; the drive is read on ours |
| Reads as unformatted | An old file system, or damage | Rebuilt on the image |
From the box arriving to your files going back.
Work we have closed →Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free
A case number goes on it the day the parcel is opened, and an engineer settles what has actually failed before anything else happens. A drive that clicks or beeps is not powered again; one that spins is read on our own imaging equipment, never in a computer that will retry and time out and retry. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.
The enclosure and its board
Every external drive is two things: the drive, and the USB board that talks to it. The board is checked first, because a failed bridge, a snapped socket or a dead regulator is the whole fault on a good share of jobs, and because on WD's encrypted drives the board holds the key. Where the drive itself has stopped, it comes out of its case onto the bench.
The mechanics, in clean air
Stuck or failed heads are replaced with a matched set from a donor, seized spindles freed, and firmware faults corrected in the drive's service area from the terminal. The drive is not repaired to be used again; it is made to read once, in a single careful pass, and that pass is planned before it begins.
A full image, then the volume
Nothing is worked on live. The whole drive is imaged once, head by head and weak areas last, with reads timed to what the platters can stand, and the file system is put back together on the image. Encrypted volumes are unlocked there too, with the original board's key or the password you supply, and never on the original.
You see the file list before you pay
What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.
From the bench
- Years off is not years safe. Lubricant migrates and heads settle onto the platters; the first spin-up after a decade is the one that does the damage. Let the bench do it.
- The port is never the problem. The drive inside is SATA or IDE and reads directly.
- Old file systems read fine. HFS+, FAT32 and an early NTFS are all rebuilt on the image and copied to fresh media.
What helps, and what harms.
Do this much first
- Send it as it is, unpowered
- Send the supply and any lead you have
- Tell us how long it has been unused
- Say what you hope is on it
What sets us back
- Powering it repeatedly to see whether it works
- Buying an adapter and trying it at home
- Opening the drive
- Using a supply that hums or smells
Questions answered before you commit.
Can you still get parts for a Hitachi drive?
Yes. Travelstar and Deskstar families are well documented and donors are available; the free look identifies the exact family.
Which drive is inside a Hitachi / HGST?
It varies by model and batch: Seagate, Western Digital or Toshiba on anything recent, sometimes Samsung or Hitachi on older units. The free look identifies it, and donor parts are matched to the drive, not the badge.
What does it cost?
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing before any chargeable work. On most jobs no data means no bill.
How long does it take?
3–4 days at the bench after the free look.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Nothing gets worse while it is unplugged.
Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the drive unplugged.