Yes, generally, and for entirely different reasons than anything you ever heard about hard disk failure. SSDs fail differently than hard disks; they give little or no warning signs (generally) when they fail; and they are typically recoverable in ways that don’t apply to hard disk failure. Two things will determine whether you’ll be able to recover your data successfully: how did the SSD fail, and had the files been removed (i.e., deleted) prior to its failure?
If the SSD was operational (had files on it) when it went bad, then the chances are very good that the data survived the event (the fault), and there is likely to be some method that your data recovery service can use to retrieve it. But if the files were deleted from an operational SSD, they’re gone, permanently. In this case, it didn’t take long for TRIM to erase those files. Honestly, nobody can recover them. It would help if you could identify which category your situation falls into before wasting money.
The vanishing act: fully functional yesterday; nowhere to be found today by the BIOS: either the control chip or its associated power circuitry has failed; thus eliminating the only component of the drive capable of providing access to the stored data. However, the files remain intact on the NAND flash memory behind the failed control circuitry. The firmware crash: the drive shows up, but does so incorrectly (incorrect name, 0 GB capacity, or a manufacturer’s diagnostic tag), indicating that while the control circuitry started normally, the boot time operating system (firmware) is corrupted. This represents a logical problem within the SSD itself, accessible through proper tools. Read-only mode: the drive functions correctly, but refuses to write data to it; essentially the control circuitry has determined that flash wearout exceeds safe limits, and thus has disabled writing to prevent further loss of remaining usable life. All data on the SSD is copyable, just one time, currently. The slow fade: stuttering, freezing errors during file operations, due to the failure of individual flash memory cells causing uncorrected errors; slower, more boring, but still heading towards the same destination. Interestingly missing from this list is the classic death rattle of click-grinding hard disk failure. As such, SSDs die quietly, which is precisely why we’ve developed our health-check guide and why backing-up your critical files is so important.
The reasons why SSD recovery can be done is due to the fact that normally when a problem occurs, the area where the fault occurred is separate from the areas containing your actual data. If there is a problem with the firmware, then using specialised tools, we place the SSD controller into “maintenance” mode. From here we repair/rebuild the SSD’s mapping of files to memory (the SSD has several memory chips called flash). When the controller itself is dead, the process is quite different. We read the memory chips directly and put back together the original organisation of your SSD’s data. Each file is spread out across multiple memory chips in an interleaved fashion specific to the particular controller model used by your SSD. Therefore, recovering your data from a dead SSD requires both advanced electronics knowledge and also involves cryptanalysis. This method of recovery is laborious but is actually feasible and this method is at the heart of our SSD & NVMe service and also the SSD-not-detected lane. Two genuine limitations/exceptions exist: all hardware-encrypted and some self-encrypting SSD models are difficult to recover via chip level methods, another reason to have us perform the diagnostic before proceeding. Lastly, no amount of chip level recovery will help if you’ve deleted files off an otherwise good SSD since once those files are deleted, they’re gone permanently, courtesy of TRIM, which erases them almost instantly after deletion. For such cases, the only course of action was always to rely upon your Recycle Bin, cloud backup options and/or other forms of backup.
Stop the resuscitation attempts. As far as reviving a crashed controller, repeated power cycling may cause it to come alive temporarily; however, as you continue to restart it, you risk further damaging the translation tables. If it does come alive, copy anything irreplaceable ASAP and consider it a dead unit. Don’t update or reflash firmware on an SSD that contains important data. A bad flash during the crisis could potentially close avenues of access you had previously available. Don’t reformat or reinitialise an SSD in order to get it recognised again. Doing so would result in having visibility of the drive, however, this would likely be at the cost of your actual data. Also, do not run a long series of scans to try to find something that might work: recovery software requires a working disk that your system recognises and a non-working SSD doesn’t qualify. Your most productive time spent on this issue is shorter than a long series of scans: simply write down the problems you’ve experienced, pack up the drive and send it along for the free 48-hour diagnostic. It will tell you which one of the four paths you’re currently on, as well as how much time/money will be required to travel that path back.
The controller recognised its own flash storage was approaching the end of life and has intentionally shut down write access to prevent further damage; this is an intentional design, not a malfunction. This is really just your SSD’s way of saying thank you: since all data remains readable for a single read cycle, copy ALL of the data off now in one smooth operation and then let it go. DO NOT try to circumvent this restriction using formatting tools; the SSD is clearly indicating it has but ONE last operational action remaining.
Yes, unfortunately, this is often how SSD failures happen; they are what we refer to as “signature” failures. In general, hard drives fail physically (i.e. mechanical) over time whereas SSDs typically fail electronically (i.e. the controller or the firmware fails) almost instantaneously. Also, health percentages don’t provide any indication of this type of failure occurring because the part that has failed is the part writing the status report. Additionally, this is also the recoverable form of failure: the NAND flash memory that lies beneath the dead controller will likely retain all of the data contained within.
In many cases (often, honestly), yes; the nature of the work is different. Repairing a failed solid-state drive (SSD) may involve repairing the firmware, or reading the data off the individual NAND chips and reassembling it using a “scattering” algorithm that was implemented by the controller’s designer in software, an intricate process. However, all projects begin with the same basic steps: a free diagnosis, a fixed price for repair quoted in writing, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data, so finding out costs nothing.
Diagnostic for firmware repair and chip level read (free, 48-hour), Fixed Written Quote; in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.