When the drive vanishes, the data usually hasn’t.
Most SSD failures are not dead NAND. They are controller faults, corrupted firmware, or a broken translation table. We read the controller directly, rebuild the map, and pull the data.
Free evaluation. No recovery, no recovery charge. In-house in Huntsville.
What lives on a modern SSD
- Controller
- Firmware, FTL engine, ECC, wear leveling
- Service area
- Translation tables, bad block list, keys
- NAND dies
- The actual flash cells that hold your data
- DRAM cache
- Hot map of where data currently lives
When any of the first two layers fail, the data on NAND becomes unreadable even though the cells are intact. That is where controller work matters.
An SSD is not a hard drive with no moving parts.
Every read on an SSD passes through firmware, a translation layer, and a controller. When any of those layers fail, the drive stops responding even though the flash cells still hold the original data.
That is why pulling files off a failed SSD with standard recovery software rarely works. The problem is almost never the files. The problem is the path the controller uses to find them.
Recovering that path is the entire job.
Failure map
What we see every week
If your symptoms match any of these, the odds of a clean recovery are high.
Controller freeze
Drive detects momentarily then drops. Often seen on Sandforce, Phison S10/S11, and Marvell controllers after firmware glitches.
Firmware corruption
A failed firmware update or bad power cycle corrupts service area modules. Drive appears as 0 MB or reports a generic model string.
FTL / translation table loss
The map that turns logical sectors into NAND physical addresses is damaged. Files look garbled or partitions read as unformatted.
Bad block table damage
SSDs retire worn cells using a bad block list. When that list corrupts, good data gets masked or rewritten over itself.
Board or power damage
Surge events, lightning, or failed power supplies kill the controller, PMIC, or DRAM cache. NAND usually survives and is recoverable.
Encryption key loss
SED drives and self-encrypting controllers lock data when the internal key is disturbed. We preserve the key state during imaging.
Inside the lab
Controller work happens on our bench, not someone else’s.
Every tool we need for SSD work lives in our Huntsville facility. The drive you hand us is the drive we work on.
Service-mode access to major controller families
Raw NAND reads when the controller is unrecoverable
Board swaps for common failed SATA and mSATA SSDs
Direct NAND reading for severe board damage
How a case progresses
- 1
Read the controller over service-mode. If the controller is dead, move to donor board or chip-off.
- 2
Dump the full NAND image. Write protection stays on the original device for the entire case.
- 3
Rebuild the translation layer. Reconstruct ECC, XOR, and page interleaving per controller family.
- 4
Verify files against known-good checksums. Preview and confirm integrity before handoff.
Every handoff is a chance to lose your data or lose the clock.
Chain of custody stays local
Your drive never leaves our Huntsville bench. No third-party intake, no handoffs, no shipping damage on a fragile board.
Days saved on every case
Shipping a failed SSD to a partner lab adds a week on each leg. We read, image, and rebuild in the same facility you dropped it off at.
Encryption stays under your control
Credentials and key material never move across organizations. What you tell us, stays with us.
Transparent pricing
Simple tiers. Firm quote before any work.
Evaluation
Free
No deposit for standard evaluation
- Controller and service-area status
- Firmware health and translation layer read
- Failure type and recovery feasibility
- Firm written quote before any work
Logical & firmware
From $295
Drive is detected, firmware accessible
- Service-area rebuild and firmware reflash
- Translation layer reconstruction
- Deleted, formatted, or corrupted partitions
- Typical turnaround 2 to 5 business days
Controller & physical
From $495
Drive not detected, board or NAND work
- Controller-level access over service interfaces
- Donor board or chip-off when required
- Raw NAND image and XOR / ECC reassembly
- No recovery, no recovery charge
Complex cases requiring chip-off, multi-die reassembly, or specialty donors are quoted after evaluation.
Your case in 4 steps
From the bench to your hands.
Step 01
Intake
Drop off in Huntsville or mail it in. We log serial, model, and controller family, then issue a case number.
Step 02
Image and firmware map
We read the controller, rebuild the FTL when possible, and take a full NAND image. Nothing is written to the drive.
Step 03
Recovery and verification
Files are extracted from the image, verified against checksums, and opened to confirm integrity before handoff.
Step 04
Return
Pick up on an encrypted drive, a ProTek return drive, or a secure upload. Original device returned with the report.