SSD failure occurs rapidly and with little noise or warning: available on Monday and unavailable on Tuesday. In most cases the NAND still retains everything and it’s simply the layer reading from it that has ceased responding, which is a recoverable situation. There are two items that determine if an attempt should be made to recover: whether encryption was used and whether TRIM had previously run.
Firmware updates will overwrite the service area which a recovery will need to read, and if you have an unstable drive a stalled firmware upgrade may render it permanently unreadable. Once you perform a secure erase on a drive, there is no going back. Do not use the drive once it starts to drop out.
SSDs generally do not provide as much notice prior to failure as a hard drive does and most symptoms will look identical whether it fails due to hardware, software or other causes.
SSD recovery is a different discipline than hard disk work, and much more unstandardised.
When a controller can be revived, it will enter a vendor specific technical mode that allows for direct access of service area and translation tables. At this point, the drive will be able to be imaged in read-only form, with the file system being rebuilt from that image. This is the “good path”, and covers the majority of all controller failures.
If the controller doesn’t come on, we can read directly from the NAND; however this gives raw flash, which needs to be de-interleaved across the channels, run through an ECC correction and unscrambled in accordance with the particular layout of that controller, before it makes sense. This is a slow process requiring specialist knowledge and is usually specific to the manufacturer. Therefore, this will not always be economically viable. We will provide you honest feedback as to whether or not this is possible and if so how much it will cost.
They can each stop recovery early. Therefore, they will be checked at your diagnostic.
Many solid state drives (SSDs) come with encryption enabled by default: specifically Class 0, TCG Opal, or even the layering of BitLocker on top of other encryption types. With the lack of an applicable password or key, there isn’t any amount of healthy NAND that will allow access.
Portables in the T-series family, etc., typically encrypt by default. As such, if a user password was assigned but unavailable, nobody can access the data.
Data that was ‘deleted’ off a working drive is most likely gone because of TRIM. This is an entirely different situation and generally unrecoverable.
Ironically, a failed disk won’t run TRIM; therefore, loss of service maintains all data that continuous operation would erase.
Even if the honest answer is there’s nothing to retrieve.
Our prices for SSD and NVMe recovery start at £300 +VAT (a free 48-hour diagnostic will be performed first along with a written quote). In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. We require a 50% deposit when performing any type of controller level physical work, with the balance due only upon completion of the successful recovery of your lost data.
Send the bare drive rather than the machine. We’ll need the make, model and capacity of the SSD (not usually the make/model of the PC) because each manufacturer does this differently. If we have it we will determine how to proceed with the recovery before the drive ever reaches us. Detailed explanations: a pocket SSD that stopped answering.
Before we can start work on your unit you will need to send it in for a free diagnostic review and tell us briefly what happened. We then have one of our engineers review your unit & verify your exact quote in writing prior to starting any work.
Before dropping off or posting your device please request a quotation either by telephone or using our quotation form. The first step to recover your data is to get the device to us. Please ensure that you pack the device securely, include your contact information and then forward it to us. Once we have completed the free diagnostic of your device we will provide you with your exact price in writing prior to commencing any further work.
Posting it? We would suggest using a tracked and insured delivery method. Want to drop it off? That’s okay too. Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5:30pm is good; no appointment necessary: simply prepare the item as described above.
If you want a few more details first, fill out this form and let an engineer go through it and send you back a custom quote.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 01865 593000.
Most frequently asked questions about SSDs that are not detected/recognised by computers.
Usually not. The majority of serious SSD problems involve the controller/firmware, not the NAND memory where your data resides. Therefore the NAND memory is typically intact but the controller isn’t responding. This often allows us to access the NAND memory in vendor mode and take a read-only image from it.
No. A firmware update modifies the service area required to complete a recovery process; if it hangs on an unstable device as it attempts to complete the update, then that device may become permanently unreadable. The same applies to secure erase, which is designed to be one-way.
Because of the controller’s maintenance of mapping tables that allow translating logical address locations to where they exist physically (i.e. flash), losing power mid-write can leave the controller with an inconsistency in its mapping table and thus the drive will refuse to make itself available as opposed to risking serving corrupted data. The flash contents are usually intact behind it.
This could completely end it. In fact, many SSDs have encryption enabled by default, and BitLocker could be layered on top. As such, without either the password or recovery key for decrypting the encrypted files on the drive, no one will ever be able to decrypt them regardless of the drive’s condition. First, we determine this.
Usually not from a working drive. TRIM deletes the sectors within minutes and the deletion is real. A failed SSD cannot run TRIM; therefore a dead SSD is often a better prospect than a functioning SSD.
Data recovery starts at £300 +VAT after completion of the initial 48-hour free diagnostics service and once we have provided you with a written quotation for the cost of your project. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. For controller level projects, we require a 50% deposit to proceed with the job, but the balance will only be paid upon successful completion of the project.
Recovery at the controller level, recovery of the firmware and recovery at the chip level are all done internally. We provide a complimentary written diagnostic first, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Start your recovery now.