Devices · SSDs and NVMe cards
There is nothing to listen to on an SSD. The machine powers down as usual, and on the next start the BIOS shows no drive whatever. Three faults account for nearly all of it: the controller dies, the firmware corrupts, or power is lost mid-write. Among the drives Plymouth sends in, Western Digital and Crucial badges turn up most. We work at the flash, and sooner beats later.
You will be talking to an engineer
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| What shows up | What that points to | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| It identifies itself as SATAFIRM S11 | Only one cause: a Phison controller has dropped back into ROM | Do not touch the vendor utility |
| The BIOS shows nothing whatever | Nearly always controller or firmware; the flash behind it is fine | Chip-level work needed |
| Shown as 0GB, or at a capacity that is plainly wrong | The FTL — flash translation layer — has given way | Do not restart it again |
| SMART health drops off in a night | Genuine cell wear, or a controller reporting nonsense | Check the maker's advisory, then image it |
| Every read returns 0x800701E3 | This is a hardware fault | Image it, and run no repair tools |
| Firmware updated, and then: Boot device not found | The firmware write ended half finished; nothing boots now | Leave the power off it |
Whatever arrives is booked in under a case number on the day it reaches the bench. An engineer then works out the actual fault, and that part is free. You get a plain answer on what can come off the drive and what cannot, followed by one price in writing. Nothing further happens until you have read it and agreed.
Each power-on takes something from a failing drive. Ours is brought up in a service mode we govern, so the flash answers the bench itself and firmware that can no longer cope is held aside.
Where the controller will not respond, the flash is read directly and the translation table is reconstructed in software. A raw dump by itself is meaningless. Rebuild the table and your folder tree reappears.
Wear levelling spreads pieces of one document over every die fitted, which is the whole purpose of it. Those pieces are returned to order, the volume is reassembled, and every entry verified against the listing that goes out.
Thinking it over costs you nothing. Everything the drive gave up is listed for you before any invoice exists, and the bill only follows your go-ahead. Files travel back on media bought in for your job, with return carriage paid at this end, and the case stays on the bench until you confirm they open on your own computer.
Worth knowing before you update: flashing firmware overwrites the area holding the record of where your files live, and if power drops halfway there is nothing older beneath it to retreat to. The overwhelming majority of updates finish without incident. Take a copy first anyway. A drive already misbehaving should not be updated at all.
A firmware update was still running when the laptop's system SSD gave up, and nothing would read from it afterwards. Working in technical mode, an engineer put the translator tables back. Ten years of the photographer's edits opened again.
Perhaps, if you act today rather than this evening. The reason is TRIM: an SSD wipes the blocks that held a deleted file of its own accord, to a schedule of its own, for however long it has power. Spinning disks never behaved that way. This is one of the very few situations where pulling the power is the correct response.
Seldom. A drive that says nothing has usually lost either the controller or the firmware, and the flash behind those is untouched. The chips are read at the bench, and the bulk of what was stored comes back.
Not more difficult, just different. A hard disk fails where it moves. An SSD fails in its controller and in the tables that controller maintains. Where TRIM has not yet reached the blocks, the outlook is reasonable.
Yes, those come in too, and sit alongside the Mac and laptop work. Identical task at the flash; the chips are read in position rather than removed.
The diagnosis is free, and it comes back as a list: which files read, which do not, and what getting them off would take. Until then, leave the drive unplugged.