Question Non responsive Samsung 960 NVME

[boed]

Hello,

I've never had an SSD go belly up before. The laptop it was in wouldn't boot - couldn't even get to the bios. I thought the motherboard was shot but put in another drive and I could get to the bios no problem before booting. I connected it as a second drive in a functioning computer and it isn't recognized in any way. Disk manager doesn't see it. I'm curious if there is any common solution - boiling, freezing marking off a pin or something to get access to the data on that disk. The drives are cheap, it is the data on there that hasn't been backed up in over 2 weeks.

 

[UsandThem]

When SSDs die, most simply die without warning. I've had two 850 EVOs suddenly die with very low writes, and were showing as healthy in Samsung's utility.

You can always send it off to a data recovery company, and they can attempt to recover data. Sometimes it's not the NAND that dies, and they can swap in component that gets it functioning again (like the controller), but you would be looking at a lot of $$$ to do this.

Backups, backups, backups for data a person can't/doesn't want to lose.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I've never had an SSD go belly up before.

Which brand and model? How long have you had it? Did you, by any chance, install something like a monitoring software on it that used a database?

Also, is it possible that the SSD was the victim of an unclean shutdown? Cheap SSDs don't have capacitors so if they lose power suddenly, they might crap out completely because the controller was doing some critical maintenance task. Since SSDs are primarily 2.5 inch, most cheap brand manufacturers figure they would be working in a laptop which can't lose power suddenly due to the battery being available.

I had a Sandforce drive go kaput once. It came back to life after I kept it connected to my PC as a secondary drive for a few hours. I guess the controller firmware was able to get itself out of whatever loop it had gotten itself into. Data was intact but it was only a boot drive so I don't think it had anything important on it.

 

[boed]

Samsung 960 EVO NVME 4 years? Nothing new installed on it - end user doesn't have any install rights. Possible but more likely something else. I'm not so concerned with why it may have died but how to get data off of it. I've had it connected for 12 hours - I guess I'll check in the morning.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Samsung 960 EVO NVME 4 years?

It has a 3 year limited warranty. Possible that there might have been some mining malware installed on it from the browser that was mining Chia or something similar.

What does CrystalDiskInfo say about it? Post a screenshot if possible.

 

[boed]

Just like file managerd, disk manager, it doesn't recognize the disk.

 

[igor_kavinski]

https://semiconductor.samsung.com/resources/software-resources/Samsung_SSD_960_EVO_3B7QCXE7.iso

Not expecting this to work but you could try booting from this ISO and trying to update the firmware on the SSD.

 

[boed]

Thanks - I'm going to try freezing it for a day. SInce the bios doesn't recognize it, I don't think the iso will find it on boot.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Any chance the laptop was heating up too much? The extra heat could have messed up the controller, as mostly these are rated for 60 degrees celsius max. If the freezing (in a sealed bag and let it get to room temperature before taking it out of the bag or you risk condensation forming on it) doesn't work, you could also try baking it in an oven.

Oven baking SSDs does work! : techsupportmacgyver (reddit.com)

 

[boed]

Unfortunately freezing for a day did not work. Nor did baking it for 7.5 minutes at 200 F nor did backing it for 7.5 minutes at 375 degrees. I'm sure I could do 8 minutes at 400 F and 8.5 at 372 degrees and so on but I think there comes a time when I have to accept she's a goner.