Solid-state drives fail differently from spinning disks — and often more suddenly. There’s no clicking to warn you; an SSD data recovery job usually starts with a drive that was fine yesterday and simply isn’t detected today. That’s almost always the controller or its firmware, not the memory itself, and the data is frequently still intact behind a chip that has stopped responding. Whether it’s a SATA SSD, an M.2 or an NVMe drive, the diagnosis is free and no-recovery-no-fee applies.
If it still mounts intermittently, don’t run repair tools or let the system TRIM it — on an SSD, TRIM erases the very blocks you want back. Copy nothing, write nothing, and let us image it.
The commonest SSD failure is a controller that stops responding — the drive vanishes from the machine, or shows a fraction of its real capacity, even though the flash memory holding your data is fine. Firmware corruption does the same, often after a power cut, sometimes bricking the drive into a “safe mode” that reports zero bytes. Physical damage, worn flash and failed power regulation account for the rest. What almost never helps is consumer recovery software, because if the controller is down the operating system can’t see the drive to scan it in the first place.
Recovery depends on the fault. Where it’s firmware, we use manufacturer-level tools to bring the controller back into a readable state and image it before it drops again. Where the controller is dead, more advanced work reads the flash and reconstructs the data around the drive’s wear-levelling and encryption — complex, because modern SSDs scatter and often encrypt data across the chips, but frequently successful. As with every job, we image first and recover from the copy, so the drive is never put at further risk.
We recover 2.5″ SATA SSDs, mSATA, M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe drives, and the PCIe/NVMe storage soldered into many modern laptops. Send the whole drive; where a laptop’s SSD is soldered to the board, or hardware-encrypted through the controller, we’ll need the machine itself and, where relevant, your password or key.
Usually not. A drive that vanishes is almost always a controller or firmware fault, with the flash memory — and your data — still intact behind it. We work at controller level to bring it back into a readable state, or read the flash directly if the controller is truly dead.
It rarely helps and can hurt. If the controller has failed, the system can’t see the drive to scan it; and if it still mounts, letting the OS TRIM it will erase the blocks you’re trying to recover. Stop using it and let us image it first.
Modern SSDs spread data across many flash chips using wear-levelling, and most encrypt it at the controller. When the controller fails, that mapping and encryption have to be reconstructed to make the raw flash readable — involved work, but one we do routinely.
Yes, in most cases — we work with the drive in place on the board. Bring or post the whole machine, and if it’s hardware-encrypted (as many modern laptops are), your password or key where you have it.
A free diagnosis first, always — then a fixed written quote before any work begins, and no fee at all on most jobs if the data doesn’t come back. Firmware and controller-level SSD recoveries are typically a fixed price agreed up front; chip-level work on a dead controller is quoted after the free diagnosis. Drop your device at our Leeds address in The Pinnacle, or post it in fully insured from anywhere in Yorkshire; whichever route it takes, it’s handled in-house by our own engineers and never outsourced.
Free diagnosis, a fixed quote in writing, and no fee on most jobs unless your data comes back. Stop writing to the drive — and if it still mounts now and then, resist the urge to run repair tools.