Hi everyone, I was hoping somebody might be able to advise me please?

I have a BX500 that was the Win 7 boot drive when a crash occurred. (This crash might have been related to my laptop's power management as I used to have crashes quite frequently when running on battery, always when charge fell to ~80%.) I had no choice but to hold the power button in to switch off the computer, it just wasn't responding at all, no mouse movement.

Now I can't get anything from the drive at all - BIOS sees nothing in two different bays but gives a drive error if you try to boot from a different drive while this is inserted. Same in a different laptop in AHCI and legacy modes, same in an external caddy and a SATA-USB adaptor. Nothing shows or changes at all in Win 7 diskmgmt or BIOS no matter how I connect it. I've tried power-cycling and still nothing. Is there anything I might be doing wrong in a power-cycle (e.g. the first time I tried, I didn't realise I had to keep data lines open, maybe the time has to be precise, maybe new drives need a longer cycle, etc)

Inside, I see no evidence of damage. My next guess is to bake it? I have a temperature probe that I can use in the oven, but I'm worried that when heated, if the drive is resting on the ICs (as I have to remove the plastic case), the ICs might slide when the solder melts and beak good connections? Is baking the best step to take next? I can check some component resistances etc if guided.

There's:
one bare-copper/drilled-hole jumper (JP1)

A tiny pair of solder-bumps (JP2) that are in line with a bunch of resistors and capacitors
A row of 7 solder-bumps (J1) on both faces of the board and appear as if some MIGHT be wired directly to one of the data chip's legs. These look designed to slide a 7-pin connector on and off
Two large solder bumps (TP3) which appear on only one side, close to JP1
I can't find TP1 or 2

...will any of these effect the way it communicates with a standard PC using a SATA-USB connector, or only some purpose-built interface?

I've tried to gather some of this information from questions asked already, but SSD diagnostics is not something I've done before and I have a deadline coming up, so I was hoping you experts might not mid me asking for help.

The board says SM2258XT-AB-G144_2P5_G152X4_V01
E481033

I've seen you guys might think the SM2258XT is a tricky job?

Thanks for any help!

NO STOP !!!

Do not go near an oven with it ! If the data is important contact a professional service, the controller is support by PC3000 portable according to ACE's website - Not checked the standard card support, I don't imaging ACE would make it portable only - but you never know! .

Do you have a multi meter handy and are you comfortable using it?

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Baking???? WTF????

Which clown told you that’s even an option????

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I think I remember LTT showing a graphics card being oven baked. You have to love youtube sometimes.

I've just checked and my 6.8.8 supports the BX500's so the OP has plenty of options - if that half drunk diode isn't the problem. I'm not happy enough with my recovery % on SSD's to have a public opinion

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JP1 is probably the "ROM mode" jumper. If you short these two pads with tweezers while powering on the SDD, and then release them, your SSD should then be detected as a Silicon Motion device. This won't help you to recover your data, but it will at least confirm that the flash controller has basic sanity.

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You see, this is why I came to you guys!

The rest of the internet seems to agree that if an SSD doesn't power-cycle, then the next (inexpensive) step is to bake it. The idea is that all the solder joints will reflow at ~130C and re-make any broken connections. To me, that in itself makes sense, but assumes that every material used can withstand that temperature, so I didn't want to take some random guy's word for it (below) when there are forums full of people who actually know this stuff!
https://dfarq.homeip.net/baking-ssds-th ... ven-trick/

Yes, I have a multimeter that I'm comfortable using, and I only spotted that halfcut diode after the first post.

Am I best off first trying to fix diode D6 (the nearest label C58 is much clearer in the image I uploaded) or do some diagnostics either with jumper JP1 or otherwise? If I'd ever soldered stuff this densely-packed before, or had a sharper tip on my iron, I would have got straight on to fixing D6.

And if I do either of those, what exactly do I do? Fix D6 and then use the SSD as normal to try to grab the most important data? Short-out JP1 and leave it shorted the whole time between connecting and disconnecting the SATA cable?

And if I can't fix the diode, is either shorting or opening that connection a short-term option?

Thanks again everyone! I hope you've had a chuckle

Damn, I was hoping I'd be able to edit that post when it appeared. I wasn't ignoring what you said fzabkar, I'd just forgotten while I was writing the response that you'd already been specific about releasing the jumper

Please Google "lead free solder melting point"



Don't mess with anything yet and don't take a soldering iron to it, we do this sort of thing under a scope (at least I do cos I'm old and can't see) . Test the diode hasn't blown, it's a long shot but as the failure connected was with a power event it's worth checking and it's free to do. If you're comfortable doing it you can check if the normal voltages are at specific components or the resistance to ground although they need a little more interpretation. fzabkar is far better at saying where to stuff your probes safely than I am you don't want to let the magic smoke out.

Shorting to safe mode is done when you apply power to the drive not data connectivity, make the short - apply power - drive enters safe mode (1 or 2 seconds) - remove the short. It won't show up as a usable drive, assuming you're using windows it should show in disk manager as a 1GB unknown device. At least the one I just test here via usb did.

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I have seen threads involving oven baking in the electronics repair forums. That's only suggested if the user doesn't have access to proper BGA rework equipment, and then it's only a last resort before the device goes into the trash.

D6 appears to be a TVS diode. This is used for overvoltage protection. The SSD will be able to work without it, so there is no need to reconnect it. Can you measure its resistance? Was it shorted?

Try shorting JP1 in any case. That will tell us something useful.

You can also make some voltage measurements. Use the round pad at JP1 as your ground reference (black probe of multimeter) and then measure the voltages at the 3 zero-ohm resistors near U4 and U3.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

For reference :

U4
1.8V
1.1V
U3
3.3V

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Looks from the datasheet that the 1.1v should be 1.2v. I might need a new battery in the meter.

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Looking good!

Safe-mode worked, showing a 1GB uninitialised drive

R90 = 1.81V
R102? = 1.14
The one by U3 = 3.36V

D6 is odd though. I get 600ohm forwards 1.5k reverse

Thanks again

So there's power to it and the controller isn't dead just stupid.

That's right if you think about what a diode does and how it works.

Well yes and no... Are you absolutely sure it's not showing up in the bios, have you tried it again since being in safe mode - How important to you is the data on the drive ?

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I'm not familiar with these impulse-limiting diodes. In a normal one, I'd expect a much larger difference, maybe ~10ohm forward, 1M reverse.

BIOS gives nothing, and a SATA external connector nothing. But I plugged it in using an external caddy and for a second an unitialised disk showed in disk management and the data-access light on the caddy lit up.

This is certainly worth a little more of my time and I'd appreciate also some guidance if you're not too busy, but I won't ask you to spend ages on it. I'm considering the £500 for recovery, this isn't data I can easily give up on.

The good news being assuming the NAND is in good shape it should be possible to make a very good recovery from the drive, and that's also the bad news of things too. Unless the collective knows differently - anyone??? you've taken this about as far as you can from a DIY point and it needs something like PC3K to move it forward, especially if the data is important.

Your budget is about right - if it showed up here, you'd be looking at £375inc + the cost of any recovery media if not supplied, that's on the low end of the scale so +/- 20% is fine be wary of extremes in either direction.

I'm not touting for business in here it would be disrespectful to the longer serving, more knowledgeable members.

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Thanks again Lardman.

So would removing (/resoldering /replacing /shorting) the diode be stupid?

How about trying a power-cycle now it's been in safe mode?

There's no need to worry about the diode it's fine, if there was a problem with it you wouldn't have voltage where you do. You can try turning it off and on but I doubt it will pick up. There's very little DIY to do with SSD's beyond ensuring everything is being powered correctly and by the looks of things yours is.

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