SSD no longer recognized by Windows

[Bruce]

in summary…
[ul]
[li]you played around with the SSD in question partitions and made one partition active then inactive.[/li][li]BIOS sees the drive as having zero capacity.[/li][li]Windows can’t read it, internally or externally[/li][li]Linux can’t read it[/li][li]when it did briefly work, Word froze and the PC was slow[/li][li]the portion of firmware where the serial number is stored seems corrupted[/li][/ul]
whether your actions caused it or the drive has just coincidentally failed at the same time, you are now in a situation where either the file allocation table or the master boot record are screwed.

Recuva (and similar) only work on a Windows recognised drive with a drive letter assigned, so that door is closed.

the data on that SSD (if still recoverable) should not be made any less chance of recovery as the drive is not readable BUT the golden rule with any data recovery is the more the drive is used, the less chance you have of successfully recovering your files.

depending on the importance of your data stored on it, it may be time for cough up for a professional recovery service, but be warned, the are not cheap.

as to why the drive has gone pear-shaped, who knows, as with most things computer related sh*t-happens as they say!

not that this helps get your files back, but is the SSD still under warranty?

[Omo]

No, this disk is not under warranty.
So is this a hardware, firmware or software problem or a combination of them? Because if it’s MBR then shouldn’t it be easily corrected by software? And why do you mention FAT if it’s an NTFS disc?

[Rustys]

And why do you mention FAT if it’s an NTFS disc

Where did someone mention FAT?

So is this a hardware, firmware or software problem or a combination of them

Form the sounds of it is combination.

Because if it’s MBR then shouldn’t it be easily corrected by software

If it was then Linux would of been able to read the disk where you could of gotten the files form it.

[Omo]

Speaking of a professional recovery service, do you have a ballpark number of how much it might cost for my situation? Also, what would be the output in the best case scenario, (in order of preference), considering that since the disk failure I only ran TestDisk, CrystalDiskInfo and Ubuntu on the disk :
[ol]
[li]fully restored disk (or its exact copy), [/li][li]fully restored folder and file structure,[/li][li]fully restored files and file names but no folder structure[/li][li]a huge jumble of files with meaningless names, where 99% will be pointless system files (cos I have Windows on the disk).[/li][/ol]
Again, I am talking about the best-case scenario for my particular situation.
What kind of company should I be looking for? For example, many of them make a big point of having high-class clean rooms. Does it really matter for SSDs?

[Bruce]

in the 16 years I ran my own business, about 10 of my clients needed to use a professional recovery lab.
cheapest was $900, dearest was $3500. (Oz dollars)
it all depended on how many errors they had to get past in order to read the data.
the $3500 was to physically remove the platters out of the drive.
plus we are talking positive pressure rooms, full body suits and all that.
pretty sure there was even a cost just to look at the drive.

I can’t guess on the likely outcome of your situation, all I can say is all the people I know who have paid for the professional recovery have all had complete success getting all their data back.
the lab will dump it all onto an external drive that either you supply or they’ll sell you.

[Omo]

Is it a good idea to make an image of the bad SSD and try various recovery software on this image before resorting to professionals? Might making an image adversely affect the chances for recovery?

[Bruce]

I cannot say either way. :unsure:
going back to the golden rule in data recovery - the least number of I/O’s on the drive, the better your chances of recovery are.
plus, you’d have to say that any image you take will also copy any file corruption as well.
but it does give you a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you have a ‘copy’ of your data - be it maybe a false one.

it all comes back to how important is the data?, is it worth the effort and cost?, can it be retrieved by any other method: emails, online, hard copies, etc?

and just to rub salt into the wound - since it wasn’t being backed up, how important is it really?

[Omo]

The data is important enough that I would be happy to be able to restore the folder structure for $500 (I won’t be happy if I have to pay more, but I will pay more). The data was backed up, but when I finished changing partition sizes and copied the data onto the newly-enlarged partition, I deleted the (now slightly outdated) backup, intending to relocate and update it. The very next morning the reliable Intel SSD failed.

[Bruce]

yeah, it all comes back to getting data off a failed drive.
you could do a quick format of the drive as that only blows away the ‘drive info’ and leaves your data in what ever state is currently is, then assign a drive letter, then try Recuva (for example).

but the caveat here is Recuva, and those sort of programs, use the master file table to know where all the fragments of files reside and that’s the ‘info’ that gets blown away in a quick format.
and your drive isn’t readable at the moment and Recuva won’t work without a drive letter - see the viscous circle we are in?

sounds like your data is important enough to at least get a quote from the nearest forensic data recovery lab.