HDD GURU FORUMS

Hello, an unfortunate owner of an OCZ Vertex 4 here. Apparently it's one of the most unreliable SSDs ever made, and as you might have guessed, mine is broken. Old drive I just dug out which may have some semi-important data (not important enough to send for data recovery). Not seen by its old machine as a bootable drive, nor by a new machine when attached as a separate drive. Can't be detected by BIOS, Windows 10 Disk Manager, or Linux. Tried multiple SATA and power cables, different SATA ports, and different computers.

Opened the drive up from the top and noticed that when powered, a green indicator LED near the power port works, and a thermal camera shows that it's getting slightly warm in two places. One is the controller (32-33C) and the other a chip near the SATA port. Silkscreen says U13 and the chip is labeled with 283 NC G24. It gets to about 30C. I cannot find a schematic for the drive online, and my EE skills are for now limited. Do have a multimeter but don't know where to measure to find potential faults.

Anything I can do? Perfectly willing to post pictures/measurements. If it turns out to be a quick fix like a broken cap I can find a replacement and resolder with a hot air station. If it's one of the proprietary chips I'm out of luck. Thanks for reading!

Given the age of the drive it's likely the nand have degraded or discharged especially if the drive has not been in regular use.

Post some pictures front and back.

Hi!!!
It's difficult to diagnose the issue without further information. However, based on the symptoms you've described, it's possible that your SSD has suffered a hardware failure. There could be several reasons why the drive isn't being detected, such as a failed controller, faulty components, or damaged firmware. Without a schematic or more information, it's difficult to determine the cause of the issue. If you're comfortable using a multimeter, you could try checking for continuity on the power and data connectors to see if there is a problem with the cables or ports. If the issue is with one of the proprietary chips, it may not be possible to repair the drive yourself. I would recommend consulting with a professional data recovery service to assess the drive and recover any data if possible.

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I wish you the best of luck in your data recovery journey!

Measure the voltages at inductors L2 - L5.

Connect a USB-TTL RS232C adaptor to the Tx/Rx pins at J5 and show us the diagnostic output.

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/6074/dsc_7758.jpeg (controller side of PCB)
https://images.anandtech.com/doci/6074/dsc_7759.jpeg (underside of PCB)

Thanks to guidance by @fzabkar, I performed some extra diagnostics and it is likely this drive is unsalvageable without professional tools/involvement. Have to give up on it unfortunately.