Total SSD failure with irreversible data loss. Is it worth to get a second opinion?

1

My SSD gave up the ghost with a bluescreen and then prevented the computer from booting - didn't even let me access the BIOS anymore while connected.

For some reason I did not back up. But please let's not talk about that. :'-|

I not only have personal data on this drive, but months and months of creative work, which I'd have to meticulously recreate.

I sent the drive to a data recovery service (DriveSavers, as recommended by SanDisk), and they said firmware corruption caused the data on the chips to get encrypted. They were unable to recover as much as a partial file. It's a brick.

Should I try to use a different data recovery company?

Or am I wasting my and their time, and my best option is to set up a RAID 1 and get back to work?

EDIT: I am not so much looking for a recommendation on what to do, but I am wondering is there a difference from one company to another, when it comes to Data recovery on SSDs?

I see that they all seem to charge the same price, and have similar practices (no pay if no data). It it pretty black and white? Is my data either scrambled up with no chance of recovery, and if one company didn't make it, it's extremely unlikely that another company would?

Or do the practices in this industry greatly vary, and each company has their own unique approach with different success rates, and trying another company is actually a useful move, that's probable to get different results.

olli

Posted 2015-04-22T19:09:35.230

Reputation: 109

Question was closed 2015-04-24T18:57:42.987

2I would ask the manufacturer of the SSD for help. And for a replacement. That encryption story sounds strange. I guess you learned your lesson so I will not dwell on the backup story. – whs – 2015-04-22T19:18:18.133

1Sucky. Unfortunately, this depends completely on how much your data and time are worth to you. If you have unlimited amounts of both time and money: buy new drives, setup a backup system, and get back to work; while simultaneously sending the drive, in order, company to company, until you get one that can do it for you or that you finally trust enough to accept it's gone for good. The good(?) news is that most places will offer to diagnose if they can recover for free, you just have to pay shipping. Voting to close as "opinion-based". – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2015-04-22T19:19:35.717

@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 That was the best "I am voting to close your question" comment someone has ever written for me. – olli – 2015-04-22T19:28:53.483

@whs It is under warranty, and they will send a replacement, but I have to send in the old drive. They recommended some recovery companies, but they won't do anything beyond that for my data loss. I guess it'd be a good idea to ask if they can send me a drive in the interim. – olli – 2015-04-22T19:29:24.117

1@olli: I doubt they'd send you an advance replacement without receiving the damaged one first, but no harm in asking. Also if you get a data recovery company to open up the drive then you'll need to take permission from the manufacturer first, then return the drive along with a certificate from the company. VTC as opinion based too. – Karan – 2015-04-22T19:37:53.527

I can see why this would be opinion based. I was hoping someone had knowledge on the recovery process, where it'd be possible to say "there are various techniques in data recovery and it's possible to obtain different results" or "it's pretty black and white and the companies all do pretty much the same things, so if one hasn't recovered it, no one will recover it". Improving my question to clear this up. – olli – 2015-04-22T19:42:22.740

"For some reason I did not back up..." - No stone throwing.... In the future, consider RAID 1 (mirroring). I toss it out there because I use it to avoid these problems. And its economical to use because the components are so inexpensive. RAID is not just for servers anymore - power users have access to it, too. For example, a SATA PCIe RAID host card costs about $60.00 USD. Very inexpensive, and probably less than you paid DriveSavers :) – jww – 2015-04-22T20:14:02.420

2@olli: Even with the edit, the point is that different company personnel will have different levels of expertise so it might be possible one may succeed where the others have failed (and quite obviously success rates will differ between companies since the same drives aren't sent to all). That's only supposing however that the ones you've already tried were not competent enough to diagnose the issue properly and gave up even when there was some hope left. No-one here knows the competency of every data recovery company/employee, so it's pretty difficult to answer such a broad query. – Karan – 2015-04-22T20:35:08.273

You should always back up, oh wait...backing up my data now.... – Moab – 2015-04-23T09:21:52.270

Answers

3

...firmware corruption caused the data on the chips to get encrypted

That sounds fishy to me. Encryption is not an accident that happens when something gets corrupted. Encryption doesn't even enter into the equation unless the drive advertises that feature, or you're using some encryption software.

That being said, recovering data from a failed SSD is monumentally more difficult than from a conventional spinning hard disk, and it makes backups even more important than ever. There are data recovery companies out there that can do it, but it's expensive (thousands of dollars) and there are no guarantees.

I cannot recommend any of these companies, but there is no harm in getting a second opinion. It all depends on how much your data is worth to you.

Also, you just learned a valuable lesson about having good backups ;-)

Wes Sayeed

Posted 2015-04-22T19:09:35.230

Reputation: 12 024

Thanks, good answer. To be fair, they said "sort of like encrypted". I suppose if the controller goes crazy, and mixes up all the data, that's what you could call it... You say "recovering data from a failed SSD is difficult" and "there are no guarantees." Why? What makes it not possible to just put the chips onto a functioning controller and read out the 1s and 0s? I was barely using my drive when it failed, it's not like I was shuffling data around. – olli – 2015-04-22T19:57:00.027

1Honestly I say get a second opinion provided they will only charge of successful – Ramhound – 2015-04-22T20:22:29.677

2It's difficult because you cannot gain "raw" access to the flash cells on an SSD the way you can on hard disks. SSDs have an onboard controller that emulates the behavior of a real hard disk, but the underlying physical media is fundamentally different and proprietary to each SSD manufacturer. That means issuing OEM-specific commands in an OEM-specific way, using specialized tools that have to be obtained either by contract with the verious OEMs, or by reverse engineering. – Wes Sayeed – 2015-04-22T22:03:46.120

1SSD drives have a point of no return. Once the flash cells have decayed (eroded away the cell wall) any data stored in those cells is unreadable. Without getting too deep, it's like thousands of glasses of water. Over time, the glass holding the water erodes away and can no longer hold the water(electrical voltage) Wes is correct. The OEM is really the only true expert that would be able to have the most success in recovering any data from the drive as each manufacturer builds their drives a little differently. – Tim – 2015-04-22T22:39:25.703

1I don't think its encrypted either, scrambled is more like it, which sounds more hopeless than encrypted. – Moab – 2015-04-23T09:20:54.643

Asked: 2015-04-22T19:09:35.230

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Active: 2015-04-22T19:49:31.697