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I was working on some project and suddenly the PC froze (mouse worked perfectly but every program i clicked on turned to "Not responding"). After reboot, the BIOS booted other OS from my HDD, later I found out that BIOS couldn't see the SSD (Sandisk Plus 120GB). When it's connected to motherboard, the POST message shows a bit longer than usually (about 10 seconds longer).

I've tried using different SATA cables, different SATA ports, two other USB adapters and none of them could recognise this SSD. I read something about power cycle and connected it only to power cable for half an hour and repeated this two times, but nothing happened.

I still have warranty for this SSD (it worked for just 2 years...), but I don't want to lose all the data that was there. Does anyone know how to recover at least some of the files from this drive?

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    Call sandisk and see if they will recover it for you. If you could get it to be recognized you could try to reflash the firmware. Have you tried it with a USB adapter on another PC/device?
    – cybernard
    Commented Feb 23, 2019 at 16:11
  • On their website I've read that warranty does not include data recovery, however they've listed two authorised companies that could do this. (And the USB adapters do not work on other PCs either)
    – Andrejov
    Commented Feb 23, 2019 at 16:59
  • Flashing firmware is available through the SSD Dashboard which also can't see the drive (through adapters and through normal SATA ports)
    – Andrejov
    Commented Feb 23, 2019 at 17:00

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Unlike mechanical hard drives, which -sometimes- post warnings of impending demise, a SSD will just drop dead, leaving the user with no clue. (putting on my "nanny hat" this is why I do weekly backups to two separate mechanical hard drives - one in the house, and the other in the car) From the sound of things, it's clear that your data on the subject SSD is gone for good. As Dr. McCoy on "Star Trek often said, "It's dead, Jim".

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  • I've never thought that SSD drive could fail, I had two HDDs failures in my life, but wouldn't expect that.
    – Andrejov
    Commented Feb 23, 2019 at 17:03
  • @Andrejov - SSD's [like their more delicate siblings SD & USB sticks] just die, zero warning, exactly whenever they feel like it. It's usually total. I lost a small SanDisk only this year, just out of warranty. It's one more reason to always have current backups. Tiny SSDs take a lot more hammering because they're usually kept within an inch of full by their users.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Feb 24, 2019 at 8:37
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I have been in a similar situation and successfully used TestDisk by CGSecurity (Open Source) to eventually recover almost all of the data from a crashed 500GB Crucial SSD. There are other free or commercial ssd recovery tools that will probably work as well (search for SSD recovery tool).

In my situation the SSD would also no longer be recognized by the BIOS. By putting the SSD in an external USB enclosure, TestDisk could find and access it, temporarily rebuild the partition table and copy most of the files to another PC.

I guess it depends on the particular damage to the SSD whether the same procedure will work for you. In my case the partition table was damaged and somehow the SSD became read-only. I have never been able to get it working properly again.

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  • I've downloaded TestDisk and connected my SSD through SATA/USB but that program still can't see my drive, I'm going to check my second adapter, though i don't think it will work.
    – Andrejov
    Commented Feb 23, 2019 at 16:49

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