A professional data recovery place will usually have the hardware to remove the NAND and read the data off it raw then send it back to you on a medium of your choosing.
-
Notice regarding image hosts and attachments. See here.
SSD went bang, is it saveable?
- Thread starter Justin Credible
- Start date
A professional data recovery place will usually have the hardware to remove the NAND and read the data off it raw then send it back to you on a medium of your choosing.
- Joined
- 31 Aug 2013
- Posts
- 81
If these tracks are worth money (more than the cost of a potential recovery which is likely to be £400+ I would imagine), then send it away to see what they can do with it.
All the best, and please follow up with the outcome
Yeah, will send it off, might be a while since I'm living in the UK and only seems to be in the US that they offer this service, correct me if I'm wrong please!
Thanks
wow - thats interesting - i would have thought youd need to pull the data through the controller chip to make it readable
the chips must have an order right? so the RAW data would need to be spliced in the correct order to make readable data?
Yeah, will send it off, might be a while since I'm living in the UK and only seems to be in the US that they offer this service, correct me if I'm wrong please!
Thanks
Should be UK companies that do it - I know theres a couple of places in Germany also that do it - unfortunatly the guy I used in the past seems to have dissapeared off the face of the earth so I can't give any personal reccomendations.
EDIT: Looks like most of the UK "companies" that do it are mostly just 3rd parties who send it on to Kroll Ontrack who seem to be fairly average reputation wise and the companies that have highly rated labs for it are all US based or send to the US to do it.
Yeah the data would have to be re-ordered - the hardware used is designed to be compatible with most common models/brands. For less common ones they probably do use an identical drive to transplant but that would be a more costly option.
Last edited:
Im imagining then it is like this:
1) each nand chip unsoldered
2) in order they are placed on a "reader"
3) the raw data is stitched together
4) the software then asks for the controller chip info
5) that raw data is then "decoded" into the actual files
Is my loose grasp on this at all in the ballpark?
Im imagining then it is like this:
1) each nand chip unsoldered
2) in order they are placed on a "reader"
3) the raw data is stitched together
4) the software then asks for the controller chip info
5) that raw data is then "decoded" into the actual files
Is my loose grasp on this at all in the ballpark?
TBH I don't know a huge amount about the specifics, the guy that did it for the company I used to work for just desoldered the NAND stuck em in some kind of reader, probably entered a few details as to the specific model and wrote it all back to either a DVD or a mechanical HDD depending on the amount being recovered.
From looking around at the UK options it seems for SSD recovery most of them are just 3rd parties that will do simple recoveries via transplant or simple repairs as the normal option and send it off to one of the big name companies at an extra cost if it needs more than that. Whereas the more professional companies will use it as a normal option where its not a simple repair (and tend to charge more for a transplant).
BTW not quite sure how my earlier posts came over but they weren't intended to contradict what you were saying and/or tell you about basic micro-electronics (which I assume from your posts you have atleast a working knowledge of). Rather to show I didn't just glance at the image and see the NAND visually intact and say that would be fine then
Would not reccomend that - as Dervious mentioned above the power management IC appears to have been damaged and theres likely other damage within the power supply circuitry that may result in stuff malfunctioning and the destruction of the NAND even assuming its intact currently.
From a rudimentary understanding of the power supply circuitry based on what its possible to deduct from the images and what is and what isn't showing damage my instinct is theres a fair chance that damage is contained to the power supply components but theres a pretty big chance the NAND has been damaged also.
Although my knowledge and experience of electronics repair is somewhat out of date (to the tune of about 10 years), I`ve still got an understanding of what causes silicon to fail. Too much voltage supply is a killer. From recent research, it appears that SSD NAND runs at around 3 volts, and can withstand upto just under 5 volts for very short periods of time. Applying 12 volts to the the normal 5 volt feed will do some damage. I assume that the incoming 5 volt feed (regulated by the PC's power supply, but not very accurately) will go through circuitry within the SSD which will regulate and drop the voltage to a fairly precise and stable level that the NAND and associated controller requires. There may well be an element of "protection" built into the SSD to prevent damage from slightly excessive supply voltage. SSD manufacturers can't possibly protect their products from all kinds of maltreatment. It may well be possible to protect an SSD from a 12v on the 5v supply, but I suspect the designers will assume that the PC's power supply will have over voltage protection that will prevent such a high voltage being applied.
I think that 12 volts, even for a fraction of a second, being applied to a NAND chip will cause failure and almost certain loss of data. The designers of SSD circuity will be constrained by manufacturing cost, as well as technical limitations. I suspect that they will assume that the 5v supply will be within reasonable parameters, and may well account for slightly higher levels. I'm not so sure that they would be too worried about 12volts being applied.