SSD Recovery · Pittsburgh, PA
SSD data recovery.
Including when the answer is no.
Solid state drives fail less often than hard drives and fail worse when they do. Logical failures recover cheaply. Dead controllers sometimes don't recover at all — and you'll hear that at evaluation rather than after paying to find out.
If you've just deleted something from an SSD, power it down now. TRIM means the drive purges deleted blocks on its own, often within minutes. Unlike a hard drive, waiting genuinely costs you the data.
Deleted files, format, corrupted file system
Best odds — stop using it now$150–$300
The SSD works fine mechanically. What broke is the organisation of the data on it — a deleted folder, a format, a partition that vanished, a file system Windows can no longer read.
This prices and behaves like any other logical recovery, and it is the most favourable SSD case there is. The drive images at full speed and the work is rebuilding structures from that image.
One caveat that matters far more on SSDs than on hard drives: TRIM. When you delete a file on a TRIM-enabled SSD, the drive itself purges those blocks in the background, often within minutes. Deleted data on an SSD is frequently gone in a way it would not be on a hard drive, where deletion only removes the pointer.
That TRIM window is why powering the drive down immediately matters more here than anywhere else. Every minute it stays on is a minute the drive may be cleaning up the thing you want back.
SSD has gone read-only
Act today — but this is the good outcome$150–$300
The drive still mounts and you can open files, but nothing can be written to it. Windows or macOS may report it as write-protected.
This is usually the drive doing exactly what it was designed to do. SSDs that reach the end of their write endurance often lock themselves against further writes while remaining readable, specifically so you can get your data off.
It feels like a failure and it is actually the friendliest way an SSD can fail. Copy your data somewhere else today.
Do not try to "fix" a read-only SSD by reformatting it or clearing the write protection. That is the one action that can turn a fully readable drive into an unreadable one.
SSD not detected at all
Evaluation first — outcomes vary widelyQuoted after evaluation
The drive does not appear in BIOS, Disk Management, or Disk Utility. No capacity, no name, nothing. This is the hard category, and it is worth explaining why.
A hard drive's data layout is fundamentally readable — get the platters spinning and the sectors are where the file system says they are. An SSD is different. Its controller constantly moves data between NAND chips for wear levelling, and the only record of where anything currently lives is the controller's own translation map. When the controller dies you do not just lose the reader, you lose the map.
Recovery then means either reviving the controller, which is possible for some controller families with known service modes, or reading the NAND directly and reconstructing the mapping logic. That is controller-specific puzzle work, not a standard procedure.
Before assuming the worst: try a different cable, a different port, and a different machine. Enclosure and adapter failures produce identical symptoms and cost nothing to rule out.
The encryption wall
Sometimes genuinely unrecoverableTold at evaluation, free
This is the part of SSD recovery that has no workaround, and you deserve to hear it before you spend anything.
Most modern SSDs encrypt everything in hardware by default, whether or not you ever turned encryption on. The key lives in the controller. If the controller is dead and that key is unreachable, the contents of the NAND chips are ciphertext — and no lab anywhere recovers that at any price.
It is not a question of equipment or expense. It is arithmetic.
Anyone advertising "we recover all SSDs, guaranteed" is either not describing this case or not being straight with you. Walk away from that claim.
M.2 and NVMe drives
Same rules, different connectorAs above by failure type
M.2 is a form factor and NVMe is a protocol — neither changes the recovery picture much. The same controller-and-mapping logic applies, and the same failure modes show up.
Two practical differences. NVMe drives run hot, and heat is a real contributor to controller failure, particularly in thin laptops and unventilated enclosures. And an M.2 drive pulled from a laptop needs the right adapter to read externally, which is a detail worth mentioning when you get in touch so I have the right hardware ready.
If the drive is soldered to the board rather than removable — common in thin laptops and every Apple silicon Mac — that is a different conversation entirely.
On Apple silicon and T2 Macs the storage is soldered and cryptographically bound to the logic board. If that board is dead, the data is not recoverable by anyone.
Worth knowing
Slow failures are cheap. Sudden ones are expensive.
With hard drives, a drive that degrades gradually is the difficult, expensive case and a drive that simply won't mount is often a straightforward fix. SSDs invert that.
An SSD that wears out slowly usually locks itself read-only and hands you your data on the way out. An SSD whose controller dies without warning gives you nothing — no noise, no warning signs, no gradual decline. It just isn't there in the morning.
That is the real argument for backing up an SSD rather than watching it for symptoms. There usually aren't any.
Out of scope
Where I'll send you elsewhere
- × Hardware-encrypted drives where the controller is dead and the key is unreachable — not recoverable by anyone, and I'll tell you so at evaluation.
- × Chip-off NAND reconstruction on controller families I don't have tooling for.
- × Storage soldered to an Apple silicon or T2 Mac logic board where the board itself has failed.
- × Enterprise NVMe arrays and virtualised storage environments.
The evaluation is free either way. If your case is one of these, you'll get a plain answer and a pointer somewhere useful — not an invoice for reaching that conclusion. More on how I pick referrals.
What to do right now
- 01. Power the drive down. On an SSD this matters more than on a hard drive, because of TRIM.
- 02. Don't reformat, don't clear write protection, don't run a repair tool.
- 03. Try a different cable, port, and machine — free, safe, and it rules out the enclosure.
- 04. Note the exact make, model, and capacity. On SSDs the controller family determines everything, and the model number tells me most of it.
- 05. Start a case. I'll tell you which of the situations above you're in before anything is charged.
From the bench
Read up before you decide
- SSD not detected: what it means Why a vanished SSD is a different problem than a vanished hard drive.
- SSD recovery cost, explained Why solid state pricing works differently, including when the answer is no.
- How long do SSDs actually last? Write endurance is a non-issue. Controller death is the real risk.
- What to do in the first hour The checklist that decides how much survives. Start here.
- Mac won't boot Soldered, encrypted storage changes everything on newer Macs.
- Backing up after a loss SSDs fail less often but fail worse. Backup is the answer, not monitoring.