Question Yesterday SSD randomly died but is still seen in BIOS, possible to recover my files?

[MidnightMeister]

Hi, so I was having a lovely day today until around 3pm I went on steam to update marvel rivals to the new update, just like I update games on steam basically every other day.

The download was going fine until it got stuck on 95% of the green bar of the steam update, which is updating files. It was stuck for 5 minutes so I tried to pause it then unpause it, which caused my steam to lag, then my discord, until I eventually got a black screen.

I restarted my pc and was met with this error:


So.. I started googling how to fix this.. I went into BIOS and the drive is being recognized fine, it's the same as it ever was, so then I just assumed my best bet would be to try windows startup repair with USB installation media. I tried both startup repair, system restore, and both did not work and gave me errors:


Next I saw advice on using the CMD console from the USB, and tried to do these things, and I don't really understand much of it but it seems to say my SSD is indeed corrupted, so now I'm really goddamn worried and not sure what to do..

I tried the /scannow command and it didn't show much, and I tried system restoring from different checkpoints a couple days ago.


I then tried more commands on CMD, and I will attach all of the screenshots and pray to god someone out there can help me understand what went wrong here and how I could fix it..


As a last resort I decided to try and reinstall windows while keeping my files intact with the custom install, however it won't even let me do that as it says that it cannot create a new partition or find an existing one.. even though both show up.. Is it because I split my SSD into two paritions (don't ask me why I was very stupid back then..)


I seriously would appreciate some help and insight on this as I just recently had a battle with my PC when I tried to install an extra HDD for extra storage and had to reset my BIOS fully to fix it.. and I am seriously tired of these tech issues coming up one after another.

Is there a possible way to fix this SSD? If not is it possible for me to somehow save my files and data from it to replace it? I thank any and all in advance for those who read all of this.. thank you.

 

[Lutfij]

As a last resort I decided to try and reinstall windows while keeping my files intact with the custom install, however it won't even let me do that as it says that it cannot create a new partition or find an existing one.. even though both show up.
With everything you've done, if there was a chance of recovering data, you've likely reduced it by a significant number as the more you mess around with the data on it, the less likely you are to recover it.

Is there a possible way to fix this SSD?
The controller on the SSD would've likely died, which is why you can see it in the BIOS but it won't go beyond that. Recovering data from the SSD is possible but it's going to cost you an arm and a leg, if you don't have professionals who deal with data recovery off of said SSD.

My colleagues have said this ad-nauseum, you should backup your mission critical data + SSD's aren't something you have important data on.

 

[MidnightMeister]

As a last resort I decided to try and reinstall windows while keeping my files intact with the custom install, however it won't even let me do that as it says that it cannot create a new partition or find an existing one.. even though both show up.
With everything you've done, if there was a chance of recovering data, you've likely reduced it by a significant number as the more you mess around with the data on it, the less likely you are to recover it.

Is there a possible way to fix this SSD?
The controller on the SSD would've likely died, which is why you can see it in the BIOS but it won't go beyond that. Recovering data from the SSD is possible but it's going to cost you an arm and a leg, if you don't have professionals who deal with data recovery off of said SSD.

My colleagues have said this ad-nauseum, you should backup your mission critical data + SSD's aren't something you have important data on.

Well that's certainly not pleasing to hear.. I really wish I just did my Windows 11 Update 2 weeks ago like I was planning to since I would have made more backups then to USBs and stuff.. I'm seriously so goddamn angry at myself right now it's unreal..

 

[USAFRet]

Well that's certainly not pleasing to hear.. I really wish I just did my Windows 11 Update 2 weeks ago like I was planning to since I would have made more backups then to USBs and stuff.. I'm seriously so goddamn angry at myself right now it's unreal..

Backups are a thing that needs to be done from Day 1. And continually thereafter.
Not just when you're going to do some major thing.

 

[MidnightMeister]

Backups are a thing that needs to be done from Day 1. And continually thereafter.
Not just when you're going to do some major thing.

I suppose as usual I learn the hard way.. You think a data recovery specialist would still be able to salvage stuff like files and photos from my C: partition?

 

[USAFRet]

I suppose as usual I learn the hard way.. You think a data recovery specialist would still be able to salvage stuff like files and photos from my C: partition?

Given this:
"and I tried system restoring from different checkpoints a couple days ago."
...and all those "file record segments"....

It is highly unlikely for any data retrieval.
And it may cost you a couple hundred $$, just to find out No.

STOP any further action on this drive.
Install an OS on some other drive.
Then, connect this one as a secondary.
Then, you might use HDDSuperCone to do a 100% clone of this to some other physical drive.
( https://www.hddsuperclone.com/)

With that, try whatever consumer level data recovery things you want, or send it out to a $$ recovery company.

 

[MidnightMeister]

Given this:
"and I tried system restoring from different checkpoints a couple days ago."
...and all those "file record segments"....

It is highly unlikely for any data retrieval.
And it may cost you a couple hundred $$, just to find out No.

STOP any further action on this drive.
Install an OS on some other drive.
Then, connect this one as a secondary.
Then, you might use HDDSuperCone to do a 100% clone of this to some other physical drive.
( https://www.hddsuperclone.com/)

With that, try whatever consumer level data recovery things you want, or send it out to a $$ recovery company.

Oh ok that is actually pretty depressing to hear.. Could I use a m2 nvme ssd to USB enclosure adapter to connect to my laptop and try to use things like this HDDsuperClone you suggested or Disk Drill?

 

[USAFRet]

Oh ok that is actually pretty depressing to hear.. Could I use a m2 nvme ssd to USB enclosure adapter to connect to my laptop and try to use things like this HDDsuperClone you suggested or Disk Drill?

This being a laptop ups the complexity on exactly how you do this.

External enclosures often have different sector sizes than an internal drive, and will want to "format" any drive you put in it before use.

And, the more you mess with it, the less likely you are to actually get anything back.

How valuable is this data?
If sufficiently $$, at this point I'd consider just sending that drive out to somewhere.

Or, accept the loss, and as a wake up for future actions.

 

[dwd999]

I would think outside the Windows box, download a Linux distro, mount it on a usb stick and try booting from that. If it can read your files you may be able to copy them off the ssd before wiping it and reinstalling Windows. If you get that far make sure the ssd has a GPT partition header and nothing else on it, all unallocated space, and only the 1 ssd installed. The Windows installer will do the rest.

 

[MidnightMeister]

This being a laptop ups the complexity on exactly how you do this.

External enclosures often have different sector sizes than an internal drive, and will want to "format" any drive you put in it before use.

And, the more you mess with it, the less likely you are to actually get anything back.

How valuable is this data?
If sufficiently $$, at this point I'd consider just sending that drive out to somewhere.

Or, accept the loss, and as a wake up for future actions.

Turns out sending it out is mega expensive and not worth it compared to the worth of the data really, however I would still be willing to try recovering some stuff myself. I ended up ordering the same SSD to replace in my PC and it works just fine, so yeah just dying SSD. Would it be doable to still use the external adapter and just plug it in my PC now to try and use one of those disk searching programs? Is it safe to plug it into the working pc now? Just the thing that both of them are boot drives now, so would that even be possible to do without like destroying my now working pc?