Data Recovery Wiki » IBM/Hitachi http://www.hddwiki.org Data Recovery Training,Data Recovery Tools,Data Recovery Tutorial Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:35:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Hitachi GST clears out Simple clutter http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/10/27/hitachi-gst-clears-out-simple-clutter/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/10/27/hitachi-gst-clears-out-simple-clutter/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:03:09 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=582 Hitachi GST has updated its Simple line of external drives for EMEA, and given the G-Technology line an internal transplant with Hitachi GST drives being used in all its products.

Hitachi GST has three external storage brands: Easy, Simple, and a line of Mac disk drive products in the form of G-Technology.

From left to right there are [...]]]> Hitachi GST has updated its Simple line of external drives for EMEA, and given the G-Technology line an internal transplant with Hitachi GST drives being used in all its products.

Hitachi GST has three external storage brands: Easy, Simple, and a line of Mac disk drive products in the form of G-Technology.

Hitachi GST external drivesFrom left to right there are the Portable Rugged drive, the Simple and Stylish Portable drive, and the SimpleDrive.

The G-Technology and SimpleTech bands were acquired by Hitachi GST with its Fabrik Inc purchase in April this year.

G-Technology is positioned as a provider of storage products for the Mac, creative professional and high-end audio/video (AV) markets. It has a line of single-drive and low-cost RAID systems. SimpleTech was a straightforward consumer brand for portable and external drives.

The intention was that Fabrik’s business would form the core of a new Hitachi GST’s Branded Business division. SimpleTech CEO Mike Cordano became Hitachi GST’s exec VP for sales and marketing and the president of the company’s Branded Business unit.

In July Hitachi GST launched two Simple-branded drives: the SimpleTOUGH which was water-and shock-resistant, and the SimpleDRIVE which was a mini-portable. At the time Mike Williams, the general manager of the Branded Business unit, said “Re-branding SimpleTech to the Hitachi brand” was an important step.

It has now launched three new drives, two with a Simple tag and one without.

The new SimpleDrive comes as a vertical-mount 500G, 1TB or 2TB 3.5-inch drive in what HGST describes as an attractive anodised aluminium case, and is intended for home and small office users. The company says, shooting for a cool image, that it can be used to store “your pics, flix, tunes and docs.”

A Simple and Stylish Portable Drive is described as being available in “multiple colours” but comes in just two; a blue-coloured box if it has a 320GB 2.5-inch drive inside it and a carbon fibre black textured case if it encloses a 500GB one.

The third new drive is the Portable Rugged Drive, the follow-on from the SimpleTOUGH it would seem, as it withstands small drops and liquid spills. It uses Hitachi’s 2.5-inch Travelstar drive in 320 and 500GB capacities and has a fold-away USB cable. A Hitachi spokesperson said it is a Hitachi-branded drive with no Simple or Easy branding. However, Simple seems to be surviving as a sub-brand for now.

The branding is going to be simplified from three to just two brands. Steve Pereira, Hitachi GST’s EMEA VP, said: “Our long term strategy is to focus on building the Hitachi brand portfolio of portable storage solutions into new markets. Moving forward, we will have two highly segmented brands: ‘Hitachi’ for mainstream PC users, delivering simple and easy storage, backup and content management solutions, and ‘G-Technology’ for delivering premium, high-performance storage solutions for the Mac, creative pro, photography and AV markets.”

THe G-Technology brand will now use HGST’s 2TB, 7,200rpm, 32MB cache hard drives across its entire 3.5-inch product line, with maximum capacities ranging from 2TB to 32TB.

The 2TB drive products are available now from G-Technology’s channel.

Hitachi has also introduced internal hard drive kits. They feature 5,400 or 7,200rpm Hitachi GST drives, SATA cable, mounting screws and instructions.

The Hitachi SimpleDrive and two new portable external drives ship with Hitachi Local Backup software, which has wizards to guide users in setting up automatic backups on specific days or dates with automatic file selection. All Hitachi external storage products are Mac and PC-compatible, and feature a three-year warranty

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]]> http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/10/27/hitachi-gst-clears-out-simple-clutter/feed/ 0 Hitachi factories punch out 500GB, 7200rpm laptop HDD http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/09/01/hitachi-factories-punch-out-500gb-7200rpm-laptop-hdd/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/09/01/hitachi-factories-punch-out-500gb-7200rpm-laptop-hdd/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:40:26 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=485 Hitachi’s hard drive division has begun shipping – in “limited quantities”, mind – a notebook-oriented 3Gb/s Sata HDD with a raw capacity of 500GB and a spin speed of 7200rpm.

Like past TravelStar drives, the new 7K500 incorporates automatic data encryption. Hitachi said the drive is one of the first mobile drives to be compliant with the [...]]]> Hitachi’s hard drive division has begun shipping – in “limited quantities”, mind – a notebook-oriented 3Gb/s Sata HDD with a raw capacity of 500GB and a spin speed of 7200rpm.

Like past TravelStar drives, the new 7K500 incorporates automatic data encryption. Hitachi said the drive is one of the first mobile drives to be compliant with the Trusted Computing Group’s Opal security specification, an open standard designed specifically to help protect data on laptops. The spec was released in January 2009.

Hitachi 7K500Hitachi’s 7K500: opalescent

Opal provides a secure boot capability – pre-boot authentication – as well as protection of user data from compromise due to the loss, theft, repurposing or end-of-life of the storage device, the TCG said.

Hitachi also said the drive consumes no more than 0.7W at idle and 1.8W during read and write operations, making it a handy way of gaining the benefit of the higher rotational speed over a 5400rpm drive – the typical speed for laptop drives – without incurring a battery life penalty.

Travelstar 7K500 will begin shipping in volume later this month at a range of capacities, including 120GB, 160GB, 250GB, 320GB and 500GB. Prices were not disclosed

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]]> http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/09/01/hitachi-factories-punch-out-500gb-7200rpm-laptop-hdd/feed/ 0 HITACHI Typical problems http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/13/hitachi-typical-problems/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/13/hitachi-typical-problems/#comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:06:25 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=421 1. Firmware problem

Inimitable, HITACHI has another Service Area called SA-C; in this area store some backup firmware which could upload to SA-A replace the broken mods, which means we needn’t waste time anymore to try to find the donor drive. If the drive didn’t work which caused by the firmware corrupt, first load from [...]]]> 1. Firmware problem

Inimitable, HITACHI has another Service Area called SA-C; in this area store some backup firmware which could upload to SA-A replace the broken mods, which means we needn’t waste time anymore to try to find the donor drive. If the drive didn’t work which caused by the firmware corrupt, first load from file and then check the broken mods, then switch SA-A to SA-C and backup the mods from C area and upload it to A area, it would be ok.

PS: if you want to find the donor drive, it’s very easy, just require the same series and capacity would be ok.

 

2. Be protect

That’s a very common condition in HITACHI drive, HDD WAS LOCKED, for this problem, we also need switch to SA-C first, then backup the password mod (depend on different series: PSWD/ICES/SECI) from C-area, them upload it to A-area, the drive will free.

 

3. NVRAM problem

Sometimes we need swap the PCB between HITACHI drives, we can try to swap PCB from another drive of the same model but the drive would work still. Moreover, donor board could “lock” itself causing a good working donor drive not to spin. The problem is that logic board on modern hard drive is adapted to the head disk assembly it was manufactured with. That info is stored in a small chip called NVRAM, so after we swapped PCB, we need to do NV MATCH first. Backup the NV file from donor drive, swap PCB to patient drive, then do NV match, the drive would work well.

 

PS: for 3.5’ HDD, just choose “Dynamic repair” button could repair this problem.

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]]> http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/13/hitachi-typical-problems/feed/ 0 Mixed fortunes for Hitachi disk division http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/09/mixed-fortunes-for-hitachi-disk-division/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/09/mixed-fortunes-for-hitachi-disk-division/#comments Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:35:47 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=352 A profitable 2008 for Hitachi has been followed by a miserable 2009, with two loss-making quarters and a possible fall behind in the areal density stakes.

In April last year, and after much high-level debate within Hitachi, it was decided that Hitachi GST would remain as part of Hitachi, not be sold off in whole or part, [...]]]> A profitable 2008 for Hitachi has been followed by a miserable 2009, with two loss-making quarters and a possible fall behind in the areal density stakes.

In April last year, and after much high-level debate within Hitachi, it was decided that Hitachi GST would remain as part of Hitachi, not be sold off in whole or part, and have its fortunes rebuilt by its own internal efforts. HGST was formed in 2003 when Hitachi absorbed hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturing facilities from IBM. There were prolonged difficulties in realising a profit from the combined venture, leading up to discussions with a venture capital fund, Silver Lake Partners, for a partial sell-off in return for a capital injection. After a couple of quarters of profit in the second half of 2007, Hitachi backed out of this and decided to go it alone with Hiroaki Nakanishi as its chairman and CEO.

What followed was its reward: four quarters of profit in 2008 (see chart below) accompanied by bullish marketing statements about competing with industry leaders, including number 2 Western Digital and number 1 Seagate, both also profitable. It also made noises about areal density expertise – the industry is in a never-ending race to increase areal density and so both increase HDD capacity and lower cost/GB.

Then the recession hit, and the fourth quarter of 2008 showed a substantial profits drop, from an estimated $85m in the preceding quarter to just $4m.
Executive changes

This was followed by executive changes in the first quarter of 2009. Steven Campbell was appointed as Chief Technology Officer in January 2009, with global responsibility for all aspects of the company’s product development and technical vision. In February chief financial officer Stephen Milligan was promoted to President, whilst keeping the CFO role and remaining at the company’s San Jose, California headquarters.

Hiroaki Nakanishi remained as chairman, but also became an executive VP at parent Hitachi, Ltd. responsible for the Hitachi Group’s global strategy. There was no official full-time Hitachi GST CEO.

Another executive left Hitachi GST; Shinjiro Iwata, an Executive Vice President became CEO of Service and Global Business for the Information and Telecommunication Systems Group of Hitachi, Ltd. There was also an incoming executive, Masaya Watanabe, who joined Hitachi GST as its Chief Strategist of Data Storage reporting to Steve Milligan. He came from Hitachi’s enterprise server division.

The first calendar 2009 quarter was poor. Revenues fell to £1.026bn from the previous quarter’s $1.252bn and there was a net loss of $57m plus a fall in HDD unit shipments to 19.2m from the previous quarter’s 22.26m.

The next one was slightly better. Revenues rose slightly to $1.109bn and there was a loss again, but a smaller one at $32m. The glory days of 2008 are becoming a distant memory. The recession hit Western Digital and Seagate even harder, with plant closures, headcount reductions and, in Seagate’s case, executive changes at CEO and direct report levels.

Revenues and income fell at Hitachi GST but it kept on expanding. It bought SimpleTech earlier this year, to gain external drive capabilities and released two products in July. There was the SimpleTOUGH portable USB drive, a colorful SimpleDRIVE Mini portable USB drive, together with a SimpleNET network storage adapter for sharing USB drive content over a home or office network.

Hitachi GST also expanded its product capacity by buying an unwanted WD aluminium platter plant in Malaysia at the beginning of July.

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]]> http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/09/mixed-fortunes-for-hitachi-disk-division/feed/ 0 Hitachi GST joins 2TB Club http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/07/hitachi-gst-joins-2tb-club/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/07/hitachi-gst-joins-2tb-club/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:41:00 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=323 The 2TB hard drive club just got its third member, with Hitachi GSTjoining Western Digital and Seagate. Pretty soon desktop PC cred willdemand a 2TB spinner.The 7200rpm Deskstar 7K2000 3.5-inch drive a 32MB cache and a3Gbit/s SATA II link to its host PC. There are five platters, whichmeans Hitachi GST has not achieved the 500GB/platter areal [...]]]> The 2TB hard drive club just got its third member, with Hitachi GSTjoining Western Digital and Seagate. Pretty soon desktop PC cred willdemand a 2TB spinner.The 7200rpm Deskstar 7K2000 3.5-inch drive a 32MB cache and a3Gbit/s SATA II link to its host PC. There are five platters, whichmeans Hitachi GST has not achieved the 500GB/platter areal densitylevel with its iteration of perpendicular magnetic recording technologyfor this drive. Indeed the company tries to make a virtue of this bysaying the drive has a “relaxed bit density” of 292Gbits/sq in.
Oddly though, Hitachi GST is also refreshing its high-volume desktophard drive family with a new 7200 RPM Deskstar 7K1000.C family whichwill deliver 160GB to 1TB capacities using a density of 500GB perplatter, meaning 352Gbits/sq in. So, people will be asking, why isHitachi GST delivering a 5-platter 2TB model, with “a relaxed bitdensity” and 2-platter 1TB model – soon – with 500GB/platter density?The apparently obvious reason is that it needed a 7200rpm 2TB modelnow, for retail shelf visibility perhaps, and to pip WD’s 2TB CaviarBlack, and the 500GB/platter density wasn’t ready for prime productiontime. So it had to bite the extra expense and go with a 5-platter,5-head product, using older PMR technology than is used in the 1TBDeskstar 7K1000.C. How very annoying for the folks at Hitachi GST.The 2TB Deskstar will be positioned as a fast and capacious drive for people with data-rich PC environments, such as gamers.Hitachi GST’s 2TB product will compete with Seagate’s 5900rpm 2TBBarracuda LPdrive, where it should have a speed edge, and against WD’s 54002TB Caviar Greenand its expected 7200rpm2TB Caviar Black.For now Hitachi GST is the 2TB desktop drive speed king and will remain so until WD’s 2TB Caviar Black surfaces.On the green front Hitachi GST says the 2TB Deskstar offers 10 percent idle power savings – it needs 7.5 watts – over previousgenerations, and on a watt-per-GB basis, idle power has improved morethan 120 per cent. Bet that fifth platter and head drive the powerrequirements up.The Deskstar 7K1000.C is expected to use 4.4 watts or less idlepower, which is the best there is when compared to current generationdesktop drives.The Deskstar 7K2000 is available from tomorrow and will be pricedaround $329. There is no information on Deskstar 7K1000.C availabilityor pricing.

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]]> http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/07/hitachi-gst-joins-2tb-club/feed/ 0 Hitachi GST to Acquire Substrate Manufacturing Facility from Western Digital http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/03/hitachi-gst-to-acquire-substrate-manufacturing-facility-from-western-digital/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/03/hitachi-gst-to-acquire-substrate-manufacturing-facility-from-western-digital/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:48:18 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=189 Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that it has agreed to acquire a substrate manufacturing facility located in Sarawak, Malaysia from Western Digital. The facility currently produces aluminum substrates used in hard disk drives. WD originally acquired the Sarawak facility through its purchase of Komag in 2007.

“This acquisition further strengthens Hitachi GST and is [...]]]> Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that it has agreed to acquire a substrate manufacturing facility located in Sarawak, Malaysia from Western Digital. The facility currently produces aluminum substrates used in hard disk drives. WD originally acquired the Sarawak facility through its purchase of Komag in 2007.

“This acquisition further strengthens Hitachi GST and is the next step in our business transformation,” said Steve Milligan, president, Hitachi GST. “The Sarawak facility is located in close proximity to existing Hitachi GST suppliers and drive assembly operations, which will enable us to realize increased operational efficiencies and other long-term benefits.”

“The Malaysian and Sarawak governments have been instrumental in Hitachi GST efforts to develop a local manufacturing presence. We thank them for their ongoing support and look forward to growing our employee base in Malaysia,” said Ian Sanders, vice president, Components Group, Hitachi GST. “Sarawak has a highly-skilled workforce with a worldwide reputation for manufacturing and technology excellence. Our goal is to have the Sarawak team play an important role in strengthening our product competitiveness by providing Hitachi GST with greater access to world-class components.”

Closing of the acquisition is subject to customary conditions.

About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, and innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, Hitachi GST provides high-value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. Hitachi GST was established in 2003 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at http://www.hitachigst.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 400,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2008 (ended March 31, 2009) consolidated revenues totaled 10,000 billion yen ($102.0 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials, logistics and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company’s website at http://www.hitachi.com.

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]]> http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/08/03/hitachi-gst-to-acquire-substrate-manufacturing-facility-from-western-digital/feed/ 0 Hitachi Global Storage Technologies http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/07/29/hitachi-global-storage-technologies/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/07/29/hitachi-global-storage-technologies/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:30:35 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=77 Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachi purchased IBM’s hard disk drive division, integrated their own HDD operations, and launched the new company in January 2003.

Hitachi GST is headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. Another US development site is located in Rochester, Minnesota. In Japan, development sites are located in [...]]]> Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachi purchased IBM’s hard disk drive division, integrated their own HDD operations, and launched the new company in January 2003.

Hitachi GST is headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. Another US development site is located in Rochester, Minnesota. In Japan, development sites are located in Odawara and Fujisawa.

Brands

* Ultrastar – Server-class line in 3.5″ form factor with SCSI, Fibre Channel, and SAS interfaces.
* Deskstar – Desktop-class line in 3.5″ form factor with PATA and SATA interfaces.
* Travelstar – Mobile-class line in 2.5″ and 1.8″ form factors with PATA and SATA interfaces.
* Endurastar – Ruggedized line in 2.5″ form factor with PATA interface, primarily for automotive applications.
* Microdrive – 1″ form factor with CompactFlash Type II and CE ZIF connector interfaces.
* Cinemastar – 3.5″ and 2.5″ form factors, optimized for consumer electronics applications requiring quiet operation and streaming support.

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]]> http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/07/29/hitachi-global-storage-technologies/feed/ 0 Brief Introduction to the service area C zone of IBM/Hitachi HDD http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/07/28/brief-introduction-to-the-service-area-c-zone-of-ibmhitachi-hdd/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/07/28/brief-introduction-to-the-service-area-c-zone-of-ibmhitachi-hdd/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:34:44 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=13 What is HDD firmware? Let me put it this way. HDD is like a computer, while its firmware is like the operating system and application programs. Firmware contains boot instructions and code such as P list, partition table, etc. A small part of firmware is stored in the PCB rom, while the other part in the [...]]]> What is HDD firmware? Let me put it this way. HDD is like a computer, while its firmware is like the operating system and application programs. Firmware contains boot instructions and code such as P list, partition table, etc. A small part of firmware is stored in the PCB rom, while the other part in the service area (on the platter) of HDD. This service area can only be used by manufacturers which is unaccessible for average users. Such design favors manufacturers for not having to buy costly PCB chips to store all the firmware modules so that their cost can be much reduced. Due to the service area is the most frequently accessed area which would be read and written every time when the computer starts, such repeated read and write or accidental power off would cause some part of the firmware lost/damaged, just like the operating system shuts itself down because of some fatal errors. According to many of our experiences, most hard drives which can’t be identified by the computer, losing some parts of the firmware or some of them are disordered is the main cause. This is pretty much like the OS fails to startup because of missing some necessary boot files. On the nowadays market, the known professional tools for fixing Hitachi firmware are HD Doctor for IBM/Hitachi from SalvationDATA and PC3K from ACE Lab.

We know that firmware of average hard drives has two identical copies. We can call them A zone and B zone, or Primary zone and Secondary zone, also we know that Maxtor HDD firmware has 3 copies, the third one is called C zone, but most of the engineers don’t know that Hitachi drive has a third copy of firmware too. Now here we are going to go through this Hitachi C zone. First question, what is C zone? As I stated before, A zone and B zone are identical copies, which means they’ve got same modules. If one of them is damaged/corrupted, we can use the other good one to replace it. While C zone is kind of different, well, though having the same modules of A or B. The difference is that C zone was solidified after the hard drive got auto-calibrated by manufacturers, meaning it can’t be used or altered afterwards forever, even if both A zone and B zone are damaged at the same time. Now, PC3K from ACE Lab is not capable of allowing their users to write C zone , HD Doctor for IBM/HITACHI from SalvationDATA can reconstruct A zone and B zone with the C zone copy so that you can fix bad hard drives successfully and recover data eventually.
In Hitachi firmware, we can usually see such common modules as INFO, PL, GL, etc. These modules, by professional tools, can be accessed at your will. In our practice, the most frequently encountered problem for a bad Hitachi drive is one or several modules are damaged /corrupted instead of physical damages. The only thing we have to do to fix the drive is to recover the firmware, then the hard drive will work properly again, and the data can be retrieved. Due to the importance of firmware, we can say that it determines everything for fixing bad hard drives, especially for successful data recovery. While the C-zone design for Hitachi hard drives substantially facilitates the recovery of damaged A zone or B zone, as I said before, aided by tools, we can use C copy to rebuild A and B.
In addition, tool also provides another practical and powerful function- Turn the activated firmware zone to C, which can be very useful when both A zone and B zone are damaged and unaccessible
Let’s take an example to illustrate how useful “turn the activated firmware zone to C” is. Say, your Hitachi HDD becomes password-protected because of virus or man-made encryption, in such a case, we can’t access the activated firmware zone A and B by any tools, but we can use HD Doctor to ” turn the activated firmware zone to C”, which has not been password protected (C zone remains unchanged after being released from the factory), thus we can directly operate on the C zone to remove the password.

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]]> http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/07/28/brief-introduction-to-the-service-area-c-zone-of-ibmhitachi-hdd/feed/ 0 Brief Introductions on NVM http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/07/28/brief-introductions-on-nvm/ http://www.hddwiki.org/index.php/2009/07/28/brief-introductions-on-nvm/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:32:04 +0000 admin http://www.hddwiki.org/?p=11 In computer industry, there are three kinds of semiconductor memorizer mostly used. EEPROM（Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory）used to save BIOS information. Data can be kept after power off, in recent years, the flash RAM used to save BIOS information is also one kind of EEPROM. The DRAM（Dynamic Random Access Memory）is used to save temporary data, the data [...]]]> In computer industry, there are three kinds of semiconductor memorizer mostly used.
EEPROM（Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory）used to save BIOS information. Data can be kept after power off, in recent years, the flash RAM used to save BIOS information is also one kind of EEPROM.
The DRAM（Dynamic Random Access Memory）is used to save temporary data, the data can be kept only by being kept refreshing. The data stored in the chip will be gone when power off.
The SRAM（Static Random Access Memory）is used to save the common instruction and data of the CPU. The data can be kept without being refreshed, but the data stored in the chip will be gone when power off.
Usually, we call the semiconductor memorizer that can keep data after power off “NVM” (Non-Volatile Memory), and Memorizer like DRAM, SRAM is called VRAM.
As the semiconductor memorizer used in HITACHI HDD can access data randomly, it is called NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory).

NVRAM Chip used in IBM/Hitachi HDD and the countermeasure for doing a data recovery
First let’s take a look at the NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory) used on HITACHI HDD, NVRAM is one member of NVM family, it can process data accessing randomly and keep data even when power is off, but its price is comparatively more expensive than the former ROM.
NVRAM of HITACHI HDD saves important data such as number of HEADs; beginning position of SA, ROM overlay module checkout and platter adaptive parameter.
At present, HITACHI is the first manufacturer to use NVRAM as the media for saving key information.

Each HDD takes a random address as its SA (Serve Area) beginning position (basically we can say in this new tech every HDD has a unique firmware beginning position address). This unique “Random Beginning Position of SA” for each HDD is to be saved in the NVRAM of itself, which means each HDD can work with its original NVRAM only, just like one key opens one lock only; Once the data in the NVRAM is broken or being lost, there will be no operating system or software tool which can detect the HDD, not to speak of working on the SA of the HDD. Therefore, The HDD repair or data recovery becomes very difficult, even the former universal ways like “HOT SWAP PCB” become useless in such case (the information stored in each NVRAM is unique)

However, as famous data recovery companies around the world like SALVATIONDATA, ACE etc. had been searching into this new technology and the solution born. They can re-configure the hard drive’s NVRAM data according to its properties such as data structure, storage structure and so on, and this will recover the original corresponding NVRAM data. By this way, NVRAM data will be recovered and the HDD is revived.

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