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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 17:39 
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TTU wrote:
ddrecovery wrote:
TTU wrote:
When you mean drive, I assume you mean opening the SSD drive itself and not the computer @ddrecovery, is this right?

You are indeed correct.


Thanks. Would I have to open the SSD drive to perform the tests fzabkar mentioned?

The fact that you are asking this question suggests that the task is beyond you. :-(

My only advice would be to avoid those shops whose only approach is to rip all the NAND flash chips off your PCB and then reassemble your data using their software tools. That's called "chip-off" recovery. If you intend to pay for DR, then choose a shop that has a non-invasive tool such as PC3000 SSD.

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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 17:47 
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TTU wrote:
Thanks for all of your help so far. I'd like to do as much troubleshooting myself if possible but am a little cautious since I'm not sure what I'm doing and the data is very valuable to me. If it is reasonably safe, I'm willing to take the risk and open the SSD drive myself and hope I can salvage the data myself insofar as not being able to won't set me back too much financially. If a company will charge 100 extra dollars for a opened SSD, perhaps the risk reward ratio is too high. The real question is what are the chances its a simple solution? If its slim, maybe my best bet is to find a god company to handle things from here on.

TTU is going to use Jon and Data Savers. A very sensible choice I think.

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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 17:52 
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ddrecovery wrote:
TTU wrote:
Thanks for all of your help so far. I'd like to do as much troubleshooting myself if possible but am a little cautious since I'm not sure what I'm doing and the data is very valuable to me. If it is reasonably safe, I'm willing to take the risk and open the SSD drive myself and hope I can salvage the data myself insofar as not being able to won't set me back too much financially. If a company will charge 100 extra dollars for a opened SSD, perhaps the risk reward ratio is too high. The real question is what are the chances its a simple solution? If its slim, maybe my best bet is to find a god company to handle things from here on.

TTU is going to use Jon and Data Savers. A very sensible choice I think.


I second that.
Wise choice.

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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 18:26 
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fzabkar wrote:
TTU wrote:
ddrecovery wrote:
TTU wrote:
When you mean drive, I assume you mean opening the SSD drive itself and not the computer @ddrecovery, is this right?

You are indeed correct.


Thanks. Would I have to open the SSD drive to perform the tests fzabkar mentioned?

The fact that you are asking this question suggests that the task is beyond you. :-(

My only advice would be to avoid those shops whose only approach is to rip all the NAND flash chips off your PCB and then reassemble your data using their software tools. That's called "chip-off" recovery. If you intend to pay for DR, then choose a shop that has a non-invasive tool such as PC3000 SSD.


Good advice, sounds very reasonable and is not something I'd want a company to do. I just got off the phone with datasavers and they mentioned something about getting the data in binary and then reassembling it. Is this what you were refering to ??

Lol, I was going to add in my previous question what a PCB is, if that if I didn't know, perhaps I shouldn't pursue this line of reasoning :lol: I am willing to learn though :wink: I looked up PBC is google but found something about a molecule I think.

Is there any company you would recommend? Do you work on SSD's yourself?


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 18:29 
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ddrecovery wrote:
TTU wrote:
Thanks for all of your help so far. I'd like to do as much troubleshooting myself if possible but am a little cautious since I'm not sure what I'm doing and the data is very valuable to me. If it is reasonably safe, I'm willing to take the risk and open the SSD drive myself and hope I can salvage the data myself insofar as not being able to won't set me back too much financially. If a company will charge 100 extra dollars for a opened SSD, perhaps the risk reward ratio is too high. The real question is what are the chances its a simple solution? If its slim, maybe my best bet is to find a god company to handle things from here on.

TTU is going to use Jon and Data Savers. A very sensible choice I think.


I got drivesavers and data savers confused. Though I am still going to look into there company. Hopefully, it is cheaper than drivesavers.

At this point, I'll be researching quite a few companies, any and all suggestions would be welcome, especially there philosophy and practices like the good advice fzabkar gave that I couldn't dream of asking a question about.


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 19:56 
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One thing that I'm a little curious about. Why such a disparity in pricing across these companies. I'm getting quotes from 350 - 2500$

Data savers for instance charges quite a bit more than others. Is there a particular reason they are more expensive? I also got the impression while speaking that they were feeling me out, trying to gauge how important the data was to me (how much I'd be willing to spend to get it). There economy package ranges from 700-2400, depending on how much work? Do most companies give ranges like this or are others fixed?


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 20:00 
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Ours are fixed at $495 for an SSD.

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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 22:42 
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It may be helpful to describe if you noticed anything out or the ordinary prior to complete failure of the drive. Did you notice messages that the drive is failing? Any freezing? Random reboots? Or did it happen that the drive was no longer accessible all of a sudden?

Based on my experience, for your model drive, it is typically degraded media (chips). Poor quality chips are found on those models. With that in mind, there are no simple fixes, so no DIY possible.

As far as the variety of prices among various companies, it depends on the company's expenses, quality, degree of fancy service and some level of greed.

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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 2nd, 2017, 23:19 
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Just go with Jon @ DataSavers and avoid DriveSavers. With Jon, you are paying for the recovery, not a marketing and sales team.

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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 4th, 2017, 7:24 
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labtech wrote:
It may be helpful to describe if you noticed anything out or the ordinary prior to complete failure of the drive. Did you notice messages that the drive is failing? Any freezing? Random reboots? Or did it happen that the drive was no longer accessible all of a sudden?

Based on my experience, for your model drive, it is typically degraded media (chips). Poor quality chips are found on those models. With that in mind, there are no simple fixes, so no DIY possible.

As far as the variety of prices among various companies, it depends on the company's expenses, quality, degree of fancy service and some level of greed.


I did not noticed anything odd prior to the crash, other than a few minutes before it crashed. No freezing, no random reboots. I simply noticed the computer acting very slow so I opened task manager and saw 100% disk usage. After no change in a few minutes, I decided to reboot while it was in this state but never got it running again. I bought a vizio tv and connected it to my laptop via hdmi 2 while this was occuring, other than that, I'm nor sure what else to add.


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 4th, 2017, 7:34 
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Sounds like just drive degradation as mentioned before. Not much you could do yourself.

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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 4th, 2017, 18:20 
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dont we all love SSD DRIVES :mrgreen: :lol:


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 4th, 2017, 23:21 
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Overheard in th Firmware dev lab:

Management: "Ok, we have used the shittiest memory chips we can find. So guys, looks like we are pulling an allnighter to develop a new ECC to fix it up."
.. "shipping in the morning.. no pressure.."


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 5th, 2017, 18:52 
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HaQue wrote:
Overheard in th Firmware dev lab:

Management: "Ok, we have used the shittiest memory chips we can find. So guys, looks like we are pulling an allnighter to develop a new ECC to fix it up."
.. "shipping in the morning.. no pressure.."

Too funny.

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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 6th, 2017, 8:11 
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From now on, I will be paying close attention to all the parts that go into the labtop I purchase, in addition to having google drive and sync constantly running in the background so I won't have to go through this again. I'll probably choose a regular drive to store all my important files in addition to a SSD when handling large files with audio.

That said, I am currently trying to find out what controller the LITEON CV3-CE512-11 that I have uses since the PC3000 will only be compatible with it so long as the controller is supported. I believe there is a chance it is either SM or Marvell based. From the research I've done, I've confirmed the previous models CV2 uses the Marvell controller, which is not supported by PC3000. The new CV3 series specifically says it uses a new controller but does not go into detail if it is a Marvell or not.

Quote:
The CV3 series SSD adopts a new controller with the low-density parity-check
(LDPC) algorithm. By implementing the controller’s LDPC error-correcting technology,
this extends the drives endurance with TLC Flash as much as 33%, hitting
reliability levels only attainable with MLC flash. The blazing-fast writes are achieved
by intelligently treating certain memory cells as premium single-level-cell NAND for
maximum speed. When, during idle time, data in those cells is stashed away to fully
exploit the capacity benefits of TLC flash.


That said, it seems obvious there is a good chance it is a marvell controller since they used it in the past. The question is, now what?

What are my options now? It seems most companies would use the PC3000 on SSD's, but what if they can't? What are the alternative methods of data salvage that do not need to use the PC3000? How does this affect any estimation prices?

That said, so far this is conjecture. I'm still unsure which controller the SSD uses and the fee companies charge is preventing me from opening it myself to have a look. When LITEON opens in about 5 hours, I will give them a call and find this information out and go from there. If it is confirmed, I suspect the possible companies that can handle this would have been reduced to 10% of previous :shock:


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 6th, 2017, 9:42 
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It is a Marvell.
If you go to this page:

http://www.dell.com/support/article/au/en/aubsd1/sln304028/liteon-cv3-solid-state-drive--ssd--may-not-be-detected-in-your-system?lang=en
and download the firmware update for your drive (01D79) and extract it with z-zip, you get a folder named "LiteOn CV3 FCX34_ZPE".

Extract with 7-zip "CV3-CExxx-11_TCx110D, 8Dxxx-11_T8x110D, 8Dxxx-41_T8x410C_DOS.iso" that is in the DOS folder, then enter that folder.

Extract with 7-zip "BTDSK.IMG" and enter that folder.

open m.exe with HxD and strings like "Marvell Semiconductors" & "Marvell Self Flash eXecutable binary" are in there.

also contains some funny strings:
"Hey!! Don't terminate me like that!! Hardware may damnged!!"
"sfx.got parasite.got parasite"
"size wroted"
"Erasing.....Oops!! Erase Failed!! Call Help!!.."
"Bravo!! Erase Successful!!.."
"Erase Only. Gotta go now"
"Identical image is found!! What do you want me to do for you?..(*make sure you have tried it before you choice)"
"please contact hardware engineer,.Program suspending" <--- WTF?? :-)


Actually an interesting target to reverse, a lot of mention of SPI functions, and a few other things amongst the files


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 6th, 2017, 10:45 
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Thank you HaQue!

The method you used to find this out is impressive :)

Is there any other information that could be helpful about the drive itself? I can still call LITEON and ask them additional questions about the motherboard or other chips, just not sure what to ask them.

It also seems that PC3000 does have support for drives based on Marvell CPU, just LITEON are the only drives not supported :shock:

From an engineer at ACE Lab (makers of PC3000)

Quote:
Actually PC-3000 SSD support a lot of drives based on Marvell CPU, the only problem is that Lite-One are the only drives which still not supported :(

About your case - I recommend you to cold down drive to -20 below zero and wait for 2 hours. Then - connect it to PC-3000 and try to pass initialization. Sometimes cold temperature can help to make drive works again.


I am a little confused about this reply though but I don't know enough about these sort of things to ask a reasonable question. If the Marvel drives are supported, just not Lite-On, does that mean it is the software or firmware specific to Liteon that are not supported?

If that is the case, why would lowering the temperature help with a software (firmware?) issue? Is it more a general thing to try to see if it will help the drive? If it works, can the PC3000 now be able to work on the LiteOn? I'm sorry if I'm not making sense, just a little confused on what I should trying to do at this point to salvage the data.


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 6th, 2017, 11:38 
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TTU wrote:
Thank you HaQue!

The method you used to find this out is impressive :)


No, it is the Bull terrier approach - just keep plodding along after it until you can bite down on something!

TTU wrote:
Is there any other information that could be helpful about the drive itself? I can still call LITEON and ask them additional questions about the motherboard or other chips, just not sure what to ask them.

I seriously doubt calling them will help, and them giving you any info is extremely unlikely. I wold be surprised if you could even find anyone there that knows what the controller is

TTU wrote:
It also seems that PC3000 does have support for drives based on Marvell CPU, just LITEON are the only drives not supported :shock:

From an engineer at ACE Lab (makers of PC3000)

Quote:
Actually PC-3000 SSD support a lot of drives based on Marvell CPU, the only problem is that Lite-One are the only drives which still not supported :(

About your case - I recommend you to cold down drive to -20 below zero and wait for 2 hours. Then - connect it to PC-3000 and try to pass initialization. Sometimes cold temperature can help to make drive works again.


I am a little confused about this reply though but I don't know enough about these sort of things to ask a reasonable question. If the Marvel drives are supported, just not Lite-On, does that mean it is the software or firmware specific to Liteon that are not supported?

If that is the case, why would lowering the temperature help with a software (firmware?) issue? Is it more a general thing to try to see if it will help the drive? If it works, can the PC3000 now be able to work on the LiteOn? I'm sorry if I'm not making sense, just a little confused on what I should trying to do at this point to salvage the data.

"support this controller" can mean a whole slew of things from can simply ID it and nothing else to fully recover. From what I understand about the PC3K, the drive must somewhat work for it to be effective. Seems a bit strange to say a controller vendor is supported, but to exclude a SSD manufacturer as you get the same controllers in a range of SSD brands.
Given you haven't disclosed the chipset, I am not sure how they know if they support it or not.

question: why not open the SSD and take some pics. fzabkar has offered to help diag the PCB, and I cant see you getting any further on here without either choosing a DR company or opening it up.


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 6th, 2017, 13:12 
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I had decided to give Data Savers a try and have been waiting for after the weekend to give them a call. They would be perfect except for two things.

1. They don't have a no data no fee policy -- they do have a free examination and quote. 100$ if they do work but can't salvage data.
2. Open Drive Fee - $100. (I'd love to open the drive up and take photos, but the place I was willing to try will charge $100 for this)

Quote:
It is optimal and improves chances of recovery if we receive your drive in its “as failed” state. The sealed metal case of a hard drive should never be opened outside of a cleanroom. If your drive has been previously opened by another data recovery company it must have the lab’s cleanroom sticker to avoid the open drive charge. If it has been opened outside of a certified cleanroom, this makes the recovery process more challenging. Data Savers LLC will assess a $100 Open Drive Fee in addition to our regular flat rate fees. This fee will be collected before we begin to work on the failed drive. If the drive has simply been removed from a plastic external drive case the fee does not apply.


If it is a SSD, I heard it is more okay to open the case, so I'm not sure what to think about this. I'll bring it up when I call.

In the midst of this, someone was very kind enough to do some research on my drive and discovered it might not be supported by the PC3000. Which means I need to consider this when deciding which DR to choose since it seems most data recovery companies rely on the PC3000. It seems to me, at this point, its about finding a DR which can salvage the data without using a PC3000. This means the original DR company I chose may not be able to help out and I need to continue my search.

While this likely narrows done the number of companies that can salvage in this case, it complicates things as I need to contact each of them and find out if they can take it on. This brings me bake to Drivesavers, again. It seems they support LITEON drives and when I called LITEON, they recommended them.

https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com ... customers/

It sounds like salvaging the data in my case might get complicated and a unique solution is required. Despite this, is there still a good chance I can save the data and that it won't cost so much :shock:

Most importantly, whichever DR I choose, in the process of salvaging the data, what risk is there that in the process, the data will be corrupted or rendered inaccessible in the process? At the very least, if a company can not salvage the data, I need to be sure I can always give another company a try.

Also, when speaking with ACE labs, I mentioned that the controller is likely a Marvel and said I hope they will support it in the future. Then he gave the reply I quoted earlier. So, the chipset is a different piece of information I need to bring up and doesn't have to do with it being a Marvel controller?


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 Post subject: Re: Best Data Retrieval Companies for SSD
PostPosted: November 6th, 2017, 13:28 
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You are obviously worried about your data which is a good sign. PC3000 is the choice for the majority of data recovery companies to recover data from failed SSD's. It is a solid and stable platform and will not do additional damage to your drive. While there may also be a few 'smaller' data recovery companies who can work on SSD's outside of PC3000, they are few and far between. Larger companies like DriveSavers have an R&D department which allows then to work on 'non-standard drives'. However you will not pay less that $2,000 for that privilege.

As you can see from the replies. Data recovery is not an exact science. There are a lot of factors that can effect the quality of a recovery. Remember an SSD is just a circuit board with memory chips on it. The data on those memory chips can be damaged by power surges or various other factors. So recovering your data is not guaranteed, but if you choose one of the companies I suggested to you in the PM a few days ago, they will not do additional damage to the drive.

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