Anyone do evil things to bring back dead SSD drives?

[stilly]

I have an SSD that I replaced for someone but they wanted some data off it.

I was able to hook it up to my cradle and KINDA get it to see what kind a drive it was, it read it as an OCZ-VERTxx but it wanted to format it before it could be used.

They have not yet published a book on SSD secrets and tricks yet have they?

I mean, it is SOLID. I can not freeze it or warm it or drop it like I did HDs.

Is there any way to get inside it still or is it just best to write it off as gone and smash it to bits?

This was a drive that performed EXCELLENT for about a year and a half and then just did NOT boot up one day. When it was looked at closer it was discovered that it was simply not booting up.

So, it gave NO warning and just went away. :\

[gorn5150]

SSD data recovery can be tricky. Even using programs like Encase SSD's don't show all the data that is on them. They are kind of throwing the computer evidence forensic world a curve ball.

[CGT80]

http://forum.hddguru.com/index.php?mobile=desktop

This is the forum where I found Data Savers LLC. I had them recover my WD hard drive. They do SSD and memory cards AFAIK.

If you want to DIY, you might find some useful info on that forum. After reading posts from the owner of Data Savers, I decided to use them for my drive. That guy seemed to be up for any challenge, based on his posts. The pros comment on recoveries they have done, so maybe read about other SSD recoveries to learn more.

[pbsmind]

Hook it up and run photorec on it and see if it finds anything. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

[meaty-btz]

SSD data recovery can be tricky. Even using programs like Encase SSD's don't show all the data that is on them. They are kind of throwing the computer evidence forensic world a curve ball.

Yup, while the curious thing of data remains permanently on the actual chip, reading it or even interpreting it can be next to impossible if the memory chip has been damaged.

The micro switches in the memory chips remain even with deleted data until being overwritten as well but again, recovery from a damaged chip suddenly becomes neigh on impossible. Recovery of non-overwritten data on an SSD is 100% and unlike a platter disk recovery of overwritten data is zero percent as there is no "remaining" data.

Like old platter disk most SSDs have "excess" space which they use in a swap out method of bad blocks of switches. The switches die quite often and that is almost always what results in an SSD failure, Memory chip failure.

[Jimi Jah]

They are chips. Usually only one goes bad. Replace the bad one and the rest should come back up.

[stilly]

YEah, My soldering skills are not that great at replacing CHIPS on a PCB...

Aint gonna happen.

I will give that forum a read though and see if I can learn anything new that I have not been doing.

Thanks.

Also, The drive is invisible. It is not working at all. It MIGHT register when I put it in the cradle, but then take FOREVER to get a device installed. I have not even seen drive letters yet. If I could do that much then I would have accessed it myself and pulled the data off. But it aint playing nice.