I had some BTC in a software wallet this year and so when the cash, and then gold, forks took place I was able to just get my private keys from the wallet and thereby access my cash and gold bitcoins.

However, if my BTC were instead in a hardware wallet at the time of the fork, would I have had no way of ever claiming the new forked coins? Because, as I understand it, there is no way to retrieve one's private keys from such devices?