A failing SSD makes no sound at all; it simply isn't there the next time you boot. We recover 2.5" SATA, mSATA and M.2 solid state drives for Swindon, Marlborough and Devizes, including units so dead that no utility on earth can even list them.
Every SSD job gets a free diagnostic. You'll have one fixed quote in writing before any work begins.
In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Electronic and mechanical failures and chip-level work are 50% upfront, with the balance only if we recover your data, while BitLocker, ransomware, DVR and forensic jobs are paid upfront once you accept the fixed quote. You'll find full pricing on the data recovery cost page.
Each SSD job begins by matching the symptoms to the fault, and the twenty below cover almost everything that reaches our bench.
The controller chip quits and the drive drops off the bus, yet the NAND behind it still holds every file you saved.
The drive wakes into a safe state under a false name, with Phison's notorious 'SATAFIRM S11' being the giveaway.
The translator has collapsed: the drive answers politely while claiming a size no one would believe.
The controller, power circuitry or boot ROM has gone down: three separate faults that all show the same blank screen.
End-of-life protection has frozen all writes, which is maddening day to day but actually convenient for imaging.
Flash doesn't fade politely; total failure with no warning at all is its standard exit.
A write cut off mid-flight garbles the mapping tables, while a surge can take out the power stages altogether.
Exhausted cells answer differently on each pass, corruption spreads, and SMART grumbles away in the background.
Released blocks are erased in the background whenever power is present, so the odds drop by the hour: pull the plug.
Slim blades crack during upgrades and in courier vans; they're mended at board level, or read chip-off past the break.
Early-run Samsung 870 EVOs (the MZ-77E500 and its siblings) burn through reallocated sectors and die young, and they're a fixture on this bench.
MX500s (the CT1000MX500SSD1 included) can lose their map after a power event and report only a fraction of their capacity.
The budget A400 (SA400S37) shrinks to a few MB or disappears altogether once its mapping corrupts, which puts it in service-mode territory.
SSD Plus SDSSDA units lock up mid-write and never come back on their own, so we open them through service mode or read them chip-off.
SSUBX and SSPOLARIS modules from 2013 to 2017 Macs fail like any other SSD and image on our native adapters.
Crucial's cacheless budget drive wears its NAND unevenly and bricks early under heavy writes, so we read the chips directly.
'2TB' bargains hiding only 64GB of real flash loop over themselves; whatever was genuinely stored is carved from the true chips.
The plastic data tab shears off during an upgrade. It's a board-level repair, and afterwards the drive images as if nothing had happened.
Write-heavy use spends the flash's rated life until the drive locks or falters, so imaging has to succeed on the first attempt.
A firmware flash through the maker's own tool dies halfway and leaves the drive mute; we reflash it or read around the fault on the bench.
Every file on an SSD is scattered across NAND chips by a controller whose firmware keeps the only map of where anything is. When that controller dies or its firmware trips, the whole drive drops off the bus, yet the chips behind it usually still hold every byte. There are two ways back in: wake the drive through the manufacturer's hidden service mode, or lift the data straight from the NAND and rebuild the map in software. This bench does both, most weeks.
Kingston, Samsung, Crucial, SanDisk, WD, Intel and Apple's removable blades all pass through here in 2.5-inch, mSATA and M.2 form; anything that unplugs and fits in an envelope qualifies. There are two firm exceptions: chips soldered straight onto a motherboard, and phones or tablets, which we don't handle at all. TRIM and encryption genuinely complicate some jobs, and you'll hear that plainly at assessment rather than after an invoice. The regulars from around Swindon are 870 EVOs, MX500s and A400s, the same three drives every PC shop in Wiltshire sells.
Solid-state recovery is firmware and chip work from the very first minute, and the bench is built that way:
Drives that no longer identify are woken by entering the maker's service mode; the firmware is mended, the translator restored, and then a careful image is taken.
Stall-prone SSDs are captured under hardware timeout control, with retry strategies tuned to each drive rather than to guesswork.
Native connections for every removable solid-state format, right down to 2230 stubs and Apple's proprietary blades.
When a controller is past the help of service mode, the memory packages come off and are read one by one.
Analysis of the interleave, XOR and ECC patterns rebuilds the controller's mapping from bare chip dumps and turns them back into a volume.
Cracked modules and power stages burnt out by a surge are repaired at board level before any imaging is attempted.
These part numbers fill the tray for documented reasons: early 870 EVO batches (MZ-77E500) degrade their NAND ahead of time, the 980 and 990 PRO shipped with firmware that chewed through write life until it was patched, and the A400 and SDSSDA both like to vanish into their controllers' default states. Anything removable (2.5-inch, mSATA or M.2) is workable, including drives frozen read-only by their own protection. What isn't: flash soldered to a motherboard, and phones or tablets of any kind.
Most customers get a quote first, by phone or with the free online diagnostic, and then post or courier their media to us.
Sending a drive from a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV / DVR or server? Please remove the internal hard drive or SSD and send us just the drive (from a server, every disk, each labelled with its bay), as we don't offer a drive-removal service. We don't recover storage soldered to a motherboard (for example T2 and Apple Silicon Macs and some thin laptops), only drives that can be removed and sent to us. If you're not sure which kind you have, ring us first.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Mark the package for the attention of Oxford Data Recovery and we'll ring you as soon as we've diagnosed your media.
Not sure what to send? Ring 0800 689 0668 first or use the free online diagnostic.
Free diagnostic, fixed quote, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Start now or call the freephone.