Question My motherboard killed two SSDs - is professional data recovery possible ?

[TryingtoFix]

Thanks for clicking.

So after a car trip, moving my PC from home to my university, the PC failed to boot up past the splash screen, with the dram and CPU lights constantly flashing. I took it to the repair guy, who found out that the third RAM slot was causing issues and that it worked with no RAM in that slot.
I take it back to my dorm and still get the same issues. I take it back to him and he inspects the drives, my main drive is fine but my SSD is not. Apparently, a faulty motherboard has been causing all of this, the test SSD he put in also broke.

My SSD gets picked up by BIOS when he tests it (shows the correct storage space of 4TB) but he said he could not read it, and it wouldn't let him install Windows on it,
Apparently my motherboard has been killing SSDs which are installed in the PCIe slot.

Does anyone know what kind of SSD damage this is? I will pay anything to get the data on that thing back : ( How likely is bit-by-bit recovery to work in this situation?

Do you think it's damaged in such a way that the data is irretrievable or no? I never had any issues with my only 2-year-old PC before this and it showed no sign of slowing down.

Motherboard: MSI Z490 Gaming Edge WiFi

SSD: WD SN850

 

[CountMike]

Thanks for clicking.

So after a car trip, moving my PC from home to my university, the PC failed to boot up past the splash screen, with the dram and CPU lights constantly flashing. I took it to the repair guy, who found out that the third RAM slot was causing issues and that it worked with no RAM in that slot.
I take it back to my dorm and still get the same issues. I take it back to him and he inspects the drives, my main drive is fine but my SSD is not. Apparently, a faulty motherboard has been causing all of this, the test SSD he put in also broke.

My SSD gets picked up by BIOS when he tests it (shows the correct storage space of 4TB) but he said he could not read it, and it wouldn't let him install Windows on it,
Apparently my motherboard has been killing SSDs which are installed in the PCIe slot.

Does anyone know what kind of SSD damage this is? I will pay anything to get the data on that thing back : ( How likely is bit-by-bit recovery to work in this situation?

Do you think it's damaged in such a way that the data is irretrievable or no? I never had any issues with my only 2-year-old PC before this and it showed no sign of slowing down.

Motherboard: MSI Z490 Gaming Edge WiFi

SSD: WD SN850

That SSD goes into M.2 slot and if it gets "killed" it's because of that slot. If anything on it gets "killed" it's most probably just control chip but data can be retrieved only by specialty store/shop, it's expensive though.

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used).

Disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

And - as I understand your post - the data was not backed up elsewhere. Correct?

Recovery, if possible, will be indeed expensive.

If the repair guy attempted to reinstall Windows on the SSD then the data may be gone for good.

Do not do anything else with that SSD.

One thought being that the data might be accessible if the SSD is mounted in an external enclosure and not used as a boot drive. No assurances about that working.

There may be other ideas and suggestions offered. Wait.

 

[TryingtoFix]

That SSD goes into M.2 slot and if it gets "killed" it's because of that slot. If anything on it gets "killed" it's most probably just control chip but data can be retrieved only by specialty store/shop, it's expensive though.

Thanks, I'm willing to pay the price

 

[JeffreyP55]

Save yourself a lot of money next time you have a catastrophic failure.
I use Acronis. Prefer local storage though cloud storage available..
https://www.techradar.com/best/best-backup-software

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks, I'm willing to pay the price

This is specifically what a good backup routine is for.

Drive space is cheap, low cost software makes it easy.
Your data should never be at the mercy of a single drive.

https://www.macrium.com

 

[TryingtoFix]

This is specifically what a good backup routine is for.

Drive space is cheap, low cost software makes it easy.
Your data should never be at the mercy of a single drive.

https://www.macrium.com

From now on Ill do monthly entire hardrive uploads to cloud services such as dropbox

 

[fzabkar]

The fact that the SSD is detected and reports the correct capacity says that the flash controller is probably OK. At least it's not brain dead. I would try the SSD in a USB adaptor (since you don't trust the motherboard).

BTW, this SSD is not currently supported by pro tools:

https://blog.acelab.eu.com/pc-3000-ssd-list-of-supported-ssd-drives-regularly-updated.html

If you have a multimeter, I could help you to check the voltage test points on the SSD.

 

[TryingtoFix]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used).

Disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

And - as I understand your post - the data was not backed up elsewhere. Correct?

Recovery, if possible, will be indeed expensive.

If the repair guy attempted to reinstall Windows on the SSD then the data may be gone for good.

Do not do anything else with that SSD.

One thought being that the data might be accessible if the SSD is mounted in an external enclosure and not used as a boot drive. No assurances about that working.

There may be other ideas and suggestions offered. Wait.

He said it wouldnt allow him to install windows on it, I'm not sure if he meant the test drive he put in or my SSD, but either way windows did not install.

It does read in bios, it displays the correct amount of storage, which makes me speculate that the memory chips are ok and it was just the control chip. I will literally pay anything to get that data read

 

[TryingtoFix]

The fact that the SSD is detected and reports the correct capacity says that the flash controller is probably OK. At least it's not brain dead. I would try the SSD in a USB adaptor (since you don't trust the motherboard).

BTW, this SSD is not currently supported by pro tools:

https://blog.acelab.eu.com/pc-3000-ssd-list-of-supported-ssd-drives-regularly-updated.html

If you have a multimeter, I could help you to check the voltage test points on the SSD.

What would this say about the data stored on it itself? Remember, my motherboard "killed" two ssds, mine and then the test one my guy put in.

He told me that it wouldn't read through an external adapter, though I'm not sure what system he was using to test it

 

[USAFRet]

From now on Ill do monthly entire hardrive uploads to cloud services such as dropbox

3-2-1

3 copies, on at least 2 different media, 1 offsite or otherwise unavailable.

Full drive images to 'the cloud' may be problematic and time consuming to recover.

 

[TryingtoFix]

3-2-1

3 copies, on at least 2 different media, 1 offsite or otherwise unavailable.

Full drive images to 'the cloud' may be problematic and time consuming to recover.

Thank you, will do

Now to pray this one can be repaired and or gleaned

 

[fzabkar]

What would this say about the data stored on it itself? Remember, my motherboard "killed" two ssds, mine and then the test one my guy put in.

He told me that it wouldn't read through an external adapter, though I'm not sure what system he was using to test it

I'm trying to get my head around this. The drive is behaving as if it has a typical firmware fault (eg corrupt Flash Translation Layer), but that's not something that would be the result of a bad m.2 slot. It also doesn't explain the failure of the second SSD in that same slot. If the problem is due to a power issue, then I would have thought that all slots would be affected.

I think that some measurements would be in order.

 

[TryingtoFix]

I'm trying to get my head around this. The drive is behaving as if it has a typical firmware fault (eg corrupt Flash Translation Layer), but that's not something that would be the result of a bad m.2 slot. It also doesn't explain the failure of the second SSD in that same slot. If the problem is due to a power issue, then I would have thought that all slots would be affected.

I think that some measurements would be in order.

I wonder if its his ssd reader and my SSD is fine, my HDD was able to be read he said..

 

[TryingtoFix]

I wonder if its his ssd reader and my SSD is fine, my HDD was able to be read he said..

Nevermind, he sent a picture of his reader working on another transfer and its working fine.


So my SSD displays the correct storage space both in BIOS and through an external source, but it cannot be read

 

[fzabkar]

The first test is to see if you can retrieve a SMART report from your SSD. If not, then this will point to a firmware problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/datarecoverysoftware/wiki/index/smart/

 

[TryingtoFix]

I will be visiting his shop today for some more specification for the faulty SSD, gonna keep this thread posted!