HDD GURU FORUMS

A lady friend of mine has a SanDisk SSD from a MacBook (2015?). The MacBook had water damage five years ago, at which time techs said the SSD was okay, so they removed it and gave it to her. It has had no power on it all this time. She recently told me the data is extremely important to her (her entire earlier life's photos, prior to a family trauma). In an effort to recover the data, I went to Ontrack at the advice of a tech support rep at SanDisk. They also suggested Drive Savers.

I spoke with the operations manager at Ontrack after they evaluated it and he said they can't get the SSD to function so I'm dead in the water. He said they could get power to it, but nothing more. He explained to me that even though normally at this point a data recovery firm like theirs would remove the memory chips from the PCB and put them on a different PCB with a compatible controller to try to see the data, SanDisk is unique in that there is no way to match another controller to the memory chips on the SSD -- and that nothing more can be done.

I then spoke with a local data recovery firm who does work for major tech firms and universities like U of Miami, and he said if Ontrack can't do it nobody can do it. And he agreed with the operations manager at Ontrack that there's no way to use a different controller to see those memory chips. He said there's a recovery firm he works with that refuses to even look at anything made by SanDisk because of that reason.

Surely there's a way to get SanDisk to work with me, or to find a genius recover tech who won't take no for an answer who can work with SanDisk (who I can afford?).

How can we have memory chips that are impossible to see with any equipment by anybody on the planet? I'm not budgeted to pay a king's ransom, but I don't want to give up yet. I care about her.

I also spoke with the head of customer service at Drive Savers, and had anything but a warm, cozy feeling. Nothing even made sense about what they would or would not do in their evaluation, quote, or recovery processes and they were clear that they would be very limited in how much information would be shared about what they did -- even about removing chips. It's remarkable they're so big.

I went to another tech support forum and a senior member told me this is the place to come to. So I'm here, and I'm still hopeful.

Thanks so much!

Hi there

Pardon my language, but this:

oneneverknows wrote: he said if Ontrack can't do it nobody can do it.

is bulls*it.

Various members of this forum, including us, have recovered dozens of drives deemed unrecoverable by big guys. It's not a matter about who's good and who's not, it's just a matter of revenue: we don't give up easily.

In respect to your friends' drive, I wouldn't lose hope, quite the opposite. Get in touch with Ace Data Recovery (in Texas) and have them look at the drive.
Unless the water damage was caused by seawater (salt can corrode the chips quite badly), I find it really hard to believe this will not end well.

Best of luck.

Thanks so much!

Just as an FYI, according to whoever had it on their bench right after the water-damage incident 5 years ago, water damage never got to the SSD itself. I assume the issue now is what I've been told by almost every firm I went to so far -- that when an SSD has had no power for 5 years odds are very low the data will be recoverable. Of course, now I have new hope because I trust experts here like you far more than anyone I've spoken to yet.

Now to see what Ace Data Recovery has to say... and if I can afford it.

Thanks again!

Get in touch with Ace Data Recovery (in Texas)

I assume this is who you mean: https://www.datarecovery.net/contact-us.aspx#06

Just to optimized my odds, let me please ask if you carre to make a suggestion: Go to HQ, or the Houston lab? And any chance you can refer me to a senior individual there?

Thanks so much!

Please put here photo of drive in high resolution. When we see the controller and PCB I'm sure we can say more.

arvika wrote:Please put here photo of drive in high resolution. When we see the controller and PCB I'm sure we can say more.

Totally agree. We work with a lot of water damaged cellphones, and after 3-4 days after liquid damage some phones are not recoverable due to corrosion to the logic board. Both salt water and chlorine are highly corrosive. A picture is a must.

Well,
The Answer To Corrosion is Digging The Layers And Rebuilding The Path AKA Tracks ,Sometimes it Works Sometimes NOPEEE

Thanks.

Again, there's been no suggestion that the SSD itself has had water damage, just the mother board. The issue seems to be no power to the SSD for five years.

I'm still waiting to get it back from Ontrack. Then I can post high-res pics.

Ace DR gave me a "quote", or rather a rough estimate prior to having seen the unit for evaluatoin yet. It says $160/hr and it could run from about $1,000 to over $4,800.

wow, that sounds steep.

In theory, an old SSD that has not been powered on for 5 years can indeed have data leak (we've seen old Samsungs lose data within a week of inactivity). Newer models have this problem resolved up to a point but not fully. If data has leaked, then chances of recovery are practically nil, IMHO.

As others said, post pictures of the SSD and we'll start from there.
Edit: Now I noticed we're talking about a Macbook SSD drive, most likely the PCIe drives from 2015?

I believe the controller is a Marvell 88SS9183, and the SSD is "SDNEP 665-1837d".

These SSDs have an 8-pin dual MOSFET IC in one corner of the PCB near the edge connector. I have seen 3 cases where this part has failed. The solution in such cases, barring any additional faults, is to bypass it with a wire link.

oneneverknows wrote:I spoke with the operations manager at Ontrack after they evaluated it and he said they can't get the SSD to function so I'm dead in the water. He said they could get power to it, but nothing more. He explained to me that even though normally at this point a data recovery firm like theirs would remove the memory chips from the PCB and put them on a different PCB with a compatible controller to try to see the data, SanDisk is unique in that there is no way to match another controller to the memory chips on the SSD -- and that nothing more can be done.!

I am assuming it may be a little more than a MOFSET. While most of us are probably not big fans of Ontrack, I presume this basic stuff would have all been covered in testing.

ddrecovery wrote:I am assuming it may be a little more than a MOFSET. While most of us are probably not big fans of Ontrack, I presume this basic stuff would have all been covered in testing.

I would not be so sure

I have a similar problem after PC3k incl. online support says: dead drive. The chips get warm but no data in or out. So it looks like a case of desoldering the NAND ? My question is: has anybody ever successfully done this with a SanDisk Ultra2 480GB with Marvel 88SS9189-bld2 ???

What about rusolut is anybody using it and has success?