Can one rescue a dead SSD?

So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it. The
computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
the naked eye. 

Anything I could do at home to try to rescue it? I have backups of most
things but not the most recent stuff.

[Terry Polzin]

Try booting a live media, see if the live OS even sees /dev/sda.  If it
does you may be able to back up individual partitions to flash or another
SSD

On Sat, Nov 5, 2022, 10:28 <andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com&gt; wrote:

>  So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
> The
>  computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
>  the naked eye.
>
>  Anything I could do at home to try to rescue it? I have backups of most
>  things but not the most recent stuff.
>  _______________________________________________
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On Sat, 2022-11-05 at 10:32 -0400, Terry Polzin wrote:
>  Try booting a live media, see if the live OS even sees /dev/sda.  If
>  it does you may be able to back up individual partitions to flash or
>  another SSD 
Nope, fedora live OS didn't see the SSD

[old sixpack13]

>  So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
> The
>  computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
>  the naked eye. 
>   
Maybe this tool could help - don't know -
https://www.hdat2.com/

boot.iso's available

[Felix Miata]

Not IME.

andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com composed on 2022-11-05 15:27 (UTC+0100):

>  So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
> The
>  computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
>  the naked eye.  
I've had several die. When the SSD's internal controller dies, you have a lousy
paperweight, not an SSD, unless it's still under warranty - then it amounts to a
token exchangeable for a working SSD with a shorter warranty.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
	based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

[Paolo Galtieri]

If you're willing to spend the money there are companies that can try to
recover the data from the drive.  If it's just the controller it may cost
around $300 if it requires more work to recover the data it may cost you
around $2000.  I have used one company quite a few years ago and they were
able to recover the data.

Paolo

On Sat, Nov 5, 2022 at 8:39 AM Felix Miata <mrmazda(a)earthlink.net&gt; wrote:

>  Not IME.
>
>  andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com composed on 2022-11-05 15:27 (UTC+0100):
>
>  > So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it. The
>  > computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  > anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
>  > the naked eye.
>
>  I've had several die. When the SSD's internal controller dies, you have a
>  lousy
>  paperweight, not an SSD, unless it's still under warranty - then it
>  amounts to a
>  token exchangeable for a working SSD with a shorter warranty.
>  --
>  Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
>          based on faith, not based on science.
>
>   Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
>
>  Felix Miata
>  _______________________________________________
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>

[Michael D. Setzer II]

On 5 Nov 2022 at 15:27, andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com 
wrote:

Subject:        	Can one rescue a dead SSD?
From:           	andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com
To:             	users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
Date sent:      	Sat, 05 Nov 2022 15:27:37 +0100
Send reply to:  	Community support for Fedora 
users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;

>  So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
> The
>  computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
>  the naked eye. 
>   
If the bios on the machine doesn't see the drive, would try 
a usb to sata adapter and see if another machine can see 
the disk. Might be something with the controller or 
connections in machine.

Once had a disk in a desktop that wouldn't boot, and 
turned out to be a SATA cable that had gone bad.

Had another one that was even stranger. Had a machine 
that would not boot to drive after a power outage that 
was longer than UPS could handle. Turned out the cmos 
battery had gone bad, so it went to default settings in 
BIOS. The drive was Fedora only, but somehow a BIOS 
setting wa set to only boot with Windows Boot Loader. 
Changed that to secondary option, and then later 
disabled it completely. Machine boots fine..

So, would check BIOS first, and make sure that it really 
isn't seeing the disk.
If it sees the disk, look for bios setting for booting, could 
be almost anywhere.
If it is not seeing disk on original hardware, thru using 
another machine.

Had another disk that wouldn't boot from drive, but 
hooked it up to other machine and ran fsck -f /dev/sda? on 
each of the partitions. Some partitions had errors that it 
fixed, and then machine booted in original hardware..




>  Anything I could do at home to try to rescue it? I have backups of
> most
>  things but not the most recent stuff. 
>  _______________________________________________
>  users mailing list -- users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
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+------------------------------------------------------------+
 Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor 
(Retired)     
 mailto:[e-mail]                            
 mailto:[e-mail]
 Guam - Where America's Day Begins                        
 G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer 
 http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
+------------------------------------------------------------+

[ludvig van metoten]

rescatux-0.74.iso sourceforgenet?!


Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows

________________________________
From: Michael D. Setzer II via users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2022 4:45:11 PM
To: andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com <andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com>; Community support for
Fedora users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
Cc: Michael D. Setzer II <mikes(a)guam.net&gt;
Subject: Re: Can one rescue a dead SSD?

On 5 Nov 2022 at 15:27, andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com
wrote:

Subject:         Can one rescue a dead SSD?
From:            andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com
To:              users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
Date sent:       Sat, 05 Nov 2022 15:27:37 +0100
Send reply to:   Community support for Fedora
users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;

>  So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
> The
>  computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
>  the naked eye.
>  
If the bios on the machine doesn't see the drive, would try
a usb to sata adapter and see if another machine can see
the disk. Might be something with the controller or
connections in machine.

Once had a disk in a desktop that wouldn't boot, and
turned out to be a SATA cable that had gone bad.

Had another one that was even stranger. Had a machine
that would not boot to drive after a power outage that
was longer than UPS could handle. Turned out the cmos
battery had gone bad, so it went to default settings in
BIOS. The drive was Fedora only, but somehow a BIOS
setting wa set to only boot with Windows Boot Loader.
Changed that to secondary option, and then later
disabled it completely. Machine boots fine..

So, would check BIOS first, and make sure that it really
isn't seeing the disk.
If it sees the disk, look for bios setting for booting, could
be almost anywhere.
If it is not seeing disk on original hardware, thru using
another machine.

Had another disk that wouldn't boot from drive, but
hooked it up to other machine and ran fsck -f /dev/sda? on
each of the partitions. Some partitions had errors that it
fixed, and then machine booted in original hardware..




>  Anything I could do at home to try to rescue it? I have backups of
> most
>  things but not the most recent stuff.
>  _______________________________________________
>  users mailing list -- users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
>  List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
>  List Archives:
> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
>  Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue

+------------------------------------------------------------+
 Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor
(Retired)
 mailto:[e-mail]
 mailto:[e-mail]
 Guam - Where America's Day Begins
 G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer
 http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
+------------------------------------------------------------+


_______________________________________________
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[Felix Miata]

Michael D. Setzer II via users composed on 2022-11-06 01:45 (UTC+1000):

>  andreas.fournier wrote: 
> > ....The
> > computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
> > anymore.... 
>  If the bios on the machine doesn't see the drive, would try 
>  a usb to sata adapter and see if another machine can see 
>  the disk. Might be something with the controller or 
>  connections in machine. 
The "computer froze" while in normal operation means, absent a disconnect of a
cable from the SSD, the SSD itself went kaput while in use. Once another disk has
proven to work with the same connections, or the SSD has proven to work elsewhere,
no amount of fumbling in the BIOS or with cables or adapters can help.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
	based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

On Sat, 2022-11-05 at 15:27 +0100, andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com wrote:
>  So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
>  The
>  computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious
>  to
>  the naked eye. 
>  
>  Anything I could do at home to try to rescue it? I have backups of
>  most
>  things but not the most recent stuff.  
I tried now to connect the SSD over a sata to usb adapter to an other
machine. It didn't show up. I'm guessing the only possibility would be
a professional rescue service.

[Michael D. Setzer II]

On 5 Nov 2022 at 17:43, andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com 
wrote:

Subject:        	Re: Can one rescue a dead SSD?
From:           	andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com
To:             	users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
Date sent:      	Sat, 05 Nov 2022 17:43:39 +0100
Send reply to:  	Community support for Fedora 
users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;

>  On Sat, 2022-11-05 at 15:27 +0100, andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com
> wrote:
>  > So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
>  > The
>  > computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  > anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious
>  > to
>  > the naked eye. 
>  > 
>  > Anything I could do at home to try to rescue it? I have backups of
>  > most
>  > things but not the most recent stuff. 
>  
>  I tried now to connect the SSD over a sata to usb adapter to an other
>  machine. It didn't show up. I'm guessing the only possibility would be
>  a professional rescue service. 
After you hook it up, run dmesg and see what it reports. 
Does it show an attempt to see the device, and if so does 
it show wany error message.

Haven't messed with SSD drives so don't know if they are 
all one thing or not.
Many years ago, had a fellow teacher have a 60G drive 
fail with no backup and lots of files she needed. The drive 
turned out to have a chip that had fried on the board. 
Found a drive on ebay with same model number for $20, 
and was able to swap the boards and recover all data, but 
have no ideal how often that would work.

DefCon 2006 had a presentation on recovering disk, and 
it had a number of steps.. 

dmesg might report something.



>  _______________________________________________
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+------------------------------------------------------------+
 Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor 
(Retired)     
 mailto:[e-mail]                            
 mailto:[e-mail]
 Guam - Where America's Day Begins                        
 G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer 
 http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
+------------------------------------------------------------+

On Sun, 2022-11-06 at 02:55 +1000, Michael D. Setzer II via users
wrote:
>  
>  dmesg might report something. 
'sudo dmesg -w' didn't print anything when I connected the SSD over the
sata to usb adapter

[ToddAndMargo]

On 11/5/22 07:27, andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com wrote:
>  So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
> The
>  computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
>  the naked eye.
>  
>  Anything I could do at home to try to rescue it? I have backups of most
>  things but not the most recent stuff. 

Hi Andreas,

I ONLY sell Samsung SSD's for such reasons.  I
had to replace, for free (hardware and labor
reinstalling their OS's), too many SSD's before
I wised up and spend the extra money on Samsung.

If the numerous tips given you on this thread
do not work and you really, really need your
data back, contact

DriveSavers Data Recovery
415.382-8000
800.440.1904
www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com

They are not cheap though.

-T

[Roger Heflin]

What kind and brand is it?   If a given drive quits answering the sata
bus (even after a power cycle) then there is little you can do except
pay a data recovery company.

On Sat, Nov 5, 2022 at 9:28 AM <andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com&gt; wrote:
>
> So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it. The
> computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
> anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
> the naked eye.
>
> Anything I could do at home to try to rescue it? I have backups of most
> things but not the most recent stuff.
> _______________________________________________
> users mailing list -- users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> Fedora Code of Conduct:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
> List Archives:
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
> Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue

[Roberto Ragusa]

On 11/5/22 15:27, andreas.fournier(a)runbox.com wrote:
>  So, a SSD just dieded on me, the root and home partition was on it.
> The
>  computer froze and after a cold boot the BIOS doesn't find the disk
>  anymore. I opened up the casing but couldn't see anything suspicious to
>  the naked eye. 
If the disk is not visible anymore, no tool can help you, it is
likely a hardware problem.
Have another look at the part of the circuit related to the external power,
that is the place where things can blow up.

Something that may be tried is to have the SSD in a freezer for a few hours
and immediately try it again while still very cold.
The concept is that any half broken soldering may make contact again
thanks to thermal shrinking of the components.
You should be careful to avoid condensation on the cold part, but, well,
there is not much to lose anyway.
Another "fix lost electrical contact" trick is trying different positions
of the drive and a bit of shaking or tapping.

But if something has been damaged, you need a deep investigation of the
hardware, with tools and knowledge that is not available to everyone.
That is, something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_oBQ2UFZSU
(SMD (de)soldering, thermal camera, ...)

Regards.
-- 
    Roberto Ragusa    mail at robertoragusa.it