Storage Solutions Need help with SSD Data Recovery

TechnologyHell

Contributor
Sunday Night, my SSD all of a sudden died, and it is now too nasty to be put into the system, as it is going to 100% load without doing anything, and not letting the system perform at all, making it tremendously slow.
It is a WD Blue 1tb SATA ssd, holding nearly 500gb of data, where nearly 100gb is really really important for me. The drive is still under warranty, the company is ready to offer me RMA, but for the data recovery, they are telling me to go to any 3rd party data recovery service, get my data recovered, and then send the drive for RMA.

Now my question is that if the 3rd party opens up the SSD or makes any physical change to it, in order to recover data, won't my warranty be void ?
I'm stuck between whether to get my data out or the ssd rmaed, both are equally important to me.
The most important for me is the data on this drive, so even if I don't get to rma it, if the data is brought out, I am happy with it.

Anyone experienced in such data loss, ssd corruption, partition un-initialization, or any sort of data recover from SSD ??
If so, please help me out.

Screenshot 2024-09-24 100846.png

Here is a detailed view of the problem that I am facing :
(I have a 1tb hynix m.2 nvme for OS, this problem is happening on my WB Blue 1tb SATA ssd)
Sunday night, 22nd Sept, I was extracting a zip archive, which had photos and videos. The extraction was carried out by 7zip, which froze at 78%, and the copy speed (150mb/s) started coming down. I assumed it might be a big file, causing the speeds to come down. but after a while I saw it has come to kb/s, so I cancelled the extraction, and decided to start over again. Some of the files were already extracted, which I tried to delete (the entire folder) but it kept failing (the deleting window came up and did not proceed to delete anything). I however could manually delete individual files from that folder (all were images / vids, with filename, but no extension, and cant be opened). And suddenly I noticed my pc getting slow, I checked up on the task manager and found that the drive is running at 100% load. So after that I restarted my system, now it is looping at the restarting animation. So I force powered it off from the main switch. Then powered it back on, and this time the boootup took nearly 15minutes, and the pc was terribly slow. Checking up task manager again showed the same thing, 100% load on ssd.
Now I know something is not good with the drive, so I went and booted into safe mode, and there also found the same problem.
Then connected the ssd via an external USB sata enclosure, and guess what, the same problem again.
What I noticed is that as soon as I connect the SSD (either through internal sata, or via external USB enclosure), system immediately gets really really slow, and unable to read the drive (not in This PC, nor the Disk Management).
But still the Crucial Disk Info says the ssd is in good state and 99% health.
Out of so many attempts to boot the ssd properly, it happened once that the pc booted fine, no load on the ssd (0% on idle) but the drive partitions D and E were not showing up on This PC. On the taskmanager, it showed Disk 0 with no allocated letters. I went to disk management console, and there it is asking me to initialize the SSD with the type of partition ( MBR / GPT ). I did nothing and powered the system down as I knew repartitioning or reinitialization will cause permanent data loss.
Enough for day 1, monday morning, I tested it via external enclosure on a different laptop, and as soon as I plug the ssd in, the laptop started freezing and slowing down.
Someone from a group suggested me to make a bootable usb of a recovery app (I used EaseUS Recovery Wizard) and then try to access the ssd from the recovery boot mode. I tried that, but again, if this ssd is connected, even the bootable media gets frozen and no longer responds, and disconnecting the ssd immediately brings the system back to life.
Monday night, ssd is connected internally, pc did boot really slow, ssd load 100%, but nearly after 10mins, the load came down to 0%. This is again that one out of 100 chances to boot it properly. This time, on the disk management console, it shows the drive partitions D and E, taskmanager also shows it as Disk 0 (D, E) and on This PC, it appears fine as my drive D and drive E, but if i try to open it, it says YOU NEED TO FORMAT THIS DISK BEFORE USE. and on the Disk MGMT console, the partitions appear as RAW partitions of 465gb each.
I tried the EaseUS Recovery Wizard, and scanned the drive for lost files, nearly 24gb data was recovered, 756 files, all with random names, and weird file types. Out of 756, only 10 files would have been readable.
This is the last time I am having this ssd connected to my pc, and it is showing up as a regular ssd. Partitions show up as RAW, and asks me to format before use.

Help me guys, and let me know if any possible method can help me out in this situation, as the files on this drive are really really important for me.
 

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Get a usb hdd connector and plug it in another pc or laptop through usb ...you might be able to access the stored data...
 
Get a usb hdd connector and plug it in another pc or laptop through usb ...you might be able to access the stored data...
Tried that, the laptop to which I connected this drive, that laptop also gets really really slow as soon as I connect the drive.
Tried the same on my pc as well, took the ssd out, connected it to the usb connector, and connected to my pc, and the problem stays the same....
 
Then theres no other option but to give it for repairs where it will be opened and dissected for diagnosis. You can do one thing...you can ask the rma centre whether you can give the drive to third party repair shop for data recovery and that they will have to open the drive for it ...if the rma centre agrees to honour the warranty then your data and drive both are saved

...else register the drive for rma by visiting the service centre and ask them whether you can get the drive back temporarily for data recovery....if they agree then its your luck...
 
A variant of what had worked for me earlier in similar situations :

1. Create Ubuntu bootable USB pen drive.
2. Boot from it
3. In it, install "photorec"
4. Connect the damaged drive
5. Run photorec on the whole of the damages drive, including all partitions
6. It will run for a long time : overnight or multiple days. It will keep creating weirdly named files of various types : jpg, avi, doc, txt etc. Check those, and see if you need them.
 
As for RMA, get confirmation from them before you give it to Recovery center. Also have spare HDD for them to save recovered files, else they charge you.
Do update on the Data Recovery center and pricing.
Last I know they charged by size of data recovered, price was mind boggling.
 
Then theres no other option but to give it for repairs where it will be opened and dissected for diagnosis. You can do one thing...you can ask the rma centre whether you can give the drive to third party repair shop for data recovery and that they will have to open the drive for it ...if the rma centre agrees to honour the warranty then your data and drive both are saved

...else register the drive for rma by visiting the service centre and ask them whether you can get the drive back temporarily for data recovery....if they agree then its your luck...
the 2nd options looks much safer, can you suggest if there is any rma center for WD within Mumbai region ??
 
A variant of what had worked for me earlier in similar situations :

1. Create Ubuntu bootable USB pen drive.
2. Boot from it
3. In it, install "photorec"
4. Connect the damaged drive
5. Run photorec on the whole of the damages drive, including all partitions
6. It will run for a long time : overnight or multiple days. It will keep creating weirdly named files of various types : jpg, avi, doc, txt etc. Check those, and see if you need them.
Did this via a bootable media of EaseUS Recovery Wiz, scanned for like 9hrs, and brought up around 756 files, hardly 6 files were openable, but all useless.
 
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Did this via a bootable media of EaseUS Recovery Wiz, scanned for like 9hrs, and brought up around 756 files, hardly 6 files were openable, but all useless.
Yeah, I'm not aware of what goes in EaseUS. I read that it had restrictions on number of files, size of partition etc. for the free version, so suggested because this is free of restrictions and keeps getting updated by volunteers for newer types of file recovery.

It is possible that really only 6 files can be recovered - though files created by photorec can all be opened in my experience. Not sure about EaseUS.
 
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Its clear that almost 85%+ of your data went corrupt hence even if the files are recovered they are barely readable!
Crystaldisk info showing 99% good health sounds like a fluke!

Connect your ssd for one last time and try Hard Disk Sentinel tool and see what does it show in its report incl. the health bar, figures etc. I'm unsure if WD has any ssd tool but if it does then check your ssd stats in it.

Also, did your system happened to catch some random virus without your knowledge like from the internet, old infected zip, pen drive etc? As usually such disasters can also stuck due to such reasons.

Going into the micro analysis, this sudden failure can be due to a dying sata data cable or psu sata power not supplying enough power or a voltage leak. I have exp. these both issues few times and paid the price. When you play with zip, it puts a hell lot of pressure on the drives and during this time it requires full power with uninterrupted smooth data flow.
Just last year I showed here how my Intel sata ssds power port got burnt all of a nowhere. I just normally booted the pc like everyday and smoke came and system powered off itself thanks to Asus mobo detection. The ssd is still working as my boot drive with some jugaad via external power connector.

Just a month or two ago some guy here got his data recovered for a very reasonable rate in Delhi. If he reads this thread he might be helpful on data recovery part.

EaseUS is my rescue tool and try to grab its ahem version which has all features unlocked.

And my suggestion will be to format both the partitions, then delete those partitions and I'm 110% sure the sdd 100% utilization load will get resolved.
Then fire EaseUS and do a partition recovery and this should recover your data.

You got no other option left so this is the best suggestions based on my personal data recovery exp. as thats how I have been doing too.

And most importantly, patience is they key as I have kept drives running for 5-8 days and recovered 95%+ data when been in a similar situations Of course, everyone's scenarios are different though look same but exp. and suggestion is the only thing i can offer virtually.

Lastly, sata ssds are prone to frequent failures compared to nvme drives.
 
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I had the 2TB wd ext harddisk and it is still kept with me after breaking down since 2014 Data recovery center asking for 45k without any guarantee
of recovery still hesitant to go for it If you guys found any cheap option please let us know.