Hi,

Received a C400 256 GB SSD with the following symptoms.

In Windows:
- Not detected as storage by Windows (and was blocking Windows from starting).
- Invisible from the disk manager, wether connected in eSATA or USB 3.0.

In Linux:
- detected by lsblk, but was very unstable and disappeared after a few seconds
- undetected by fdisk -l
- ddrescue was failing as trying to clone Petabytes

I made this :
- pressed on all pins of the SATA (data+power) connector 350° with the soldering iron to melt the solder if any microcrack(s)
- preheated the circuit board with hot air and applied hot air at 220°C on the Marvell MCU

This improved the operation of the SSD, which became much more stable.

The SSD answers quickly to lsblk and ddrescue. However fdisk -l is still not detecting it.
ddrescue now correctly attempts to clone the correct capacity ~256 Gb but is unable to clone any data however, whatever the logical location (offset) is.

I tried again the reflow, ramping up to ~245 °C, and also on the 2U22 chip on the verso. No further improvement.

In have no idea if the firmware had been upgraded or not. (I assume not.)

In the past I have known "blue screen errors" with Micron M4 SSDs because of an early firmware. However the SSD could be upgraded from Windows as detected by it, which is not the case this time.

Diagnosing SSD is alsways a difficult thing and I'm not sure whether it is an hardware or firmware issue here.
Seems that the SSD is unable to access the memory of the chips.

I attach a few pictures.

Anyone having faced such a problem with the RealSSD C400?

Thanks.

If it were my SSD, I would vary the NAND supply voltage (by modifying the feedback divider at the LT3412A IC). Alternatively, one could remove the big inductor and patch an external variable regulator into the circuit.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi,
These Drives Are Nasty With Firmware Issues ,I have handled a couple before with PC 3000 SSD

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Ref. http://blog.acelaboratory.com/pc-3000-s ... dated.html

Controller: 88SS9174

If you have the SSD

_________________
Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. By: Albert Einstein

Hopefully one day Ace will realise that the big "M" stands for "Marvell", not "Marwell".

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Every model I checked in the current version of PC-3000 SSD has it listed as Marvell.

_________________
Blizzard Data Recovery

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

My point being, the actual software is a better representation of Ace knowing it is "Marvell" than a blog post which could be a typo, or a blog editor that doesn't know as much as the developers.

_________________
Blizzard Data Recovery

Russians and Scandanavians often mix up “V” and “W” in my experience.

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

that too

_________________
Blizzard Data Recovery

or balme it on the appalling standard of the web, editing(or lack thereof), in general.

What's shown in status register?

_________________
Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Actually, V or W doesn`t matter once we know what do they mean or refer to.

Conclusion,,, this Controller is supported in SSD

_________________
Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. By: Albert Einstein