Kingston SSD A400 Data Recovery: SATAFIRM S11 Issue Resolved

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0:00 intro
2:18 inspection and diagnostics
5:09 work with PC3000 Portable III
9:34 tools to improve reading quality
12:56 work with built translator in Data Extractor
15:26 report on results
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this video: • Kingston SSD A400 Data...

[@Q36BN]

I have this exact drive. It had this error. For those who don't care about data; you can "remove" the state in which these drives get: satafirm s11. I got it back to working condition. I scanned sectors, nothing came wrong, i secure erase it, and the drive is still working as if nothing happened before. So surely, as it was tested and shown here, reballing will not help, it's not a problem with chips, at least not on my unit or the unit HDD Recovery had. Kinda scarry, that you can have a perfectly working drive, lightly used day after day, and next day it's bricked. These drives along with other similar constructions brick themself out of nothing... So you better watch out if you have one of those.

[@rosariodagosto6484]

Thanks very much I agree with you 😊😊

[@wishmaster9935]

Very good job ❤❤

[@hddrecoveryservices]

Thanks 😄

[@mihailelea]

I have a computer repair business, and in the last 2 years I've seen at least 30-40 Kingston A400 240GB SATA dead like this, installed by me on the client's computers. Most of them died in the first 2-6 months of life (they were new). I figured it was a bad lot or something, but I really don't know what else to say. I've never seen 480GB or 960GB dead like this, even though I installed a lot of them. Only the 240GB seems to fail. I've sent them back for warranty and they always replaced them with new ones, but the data was lost and I had a lot of explaining to do with my costumers. I'm never buying Kingston SSD again.

[@laboratorioassembler]

Also happened to me with "intenso 240gb"... all of them died on 1/7 months .. data lost . And customers very hungry... 40 units circa

[@MichaelCraig414]

good to know.. thx for the share

[@awilliams1701]

speaking of old SATA SSDs. I wonder how my 2011 gaming PC SSD is. I used it until 2021. It was something I was more and more concerned about as time went on. I was just short on cash. It was originally a plextor 256gb for $800, but it filled up quickly. That plextor drive is in my 2010 laptop now (which still works just fine). I replaced it with samsung 830 I think. 512 also for $800. That one lasted longer. Eventually I doubled it up with a samsung 840 evo 512. When I retired that computer it was very low on space. My new computer has dual 1tb samsung 980pros. tons of free space.

[@Cragified]

A great many of SSD makers now use this junk Phison 3111 controller for their SATA SSDs. PNY, Silicon Power, Kingston, Patriot etc. on drives below 1TB (The Phison 3111 is unable to do sizes that high). I have had two SSDs die already from this controller. One PNY literally the day it was installed while copying files over to it. And then a Silicon Power one. The problem is the controller is DRAMless and can through many conditions screw up it's own firmware, due to low voltage, power loss, etc.

[@gurhanbayr5080]

Nice job my friend

[@Joke90]

as always perfect....

[@laboratorioassembler]

All cases i saw about satafirm s11 are riconducible to power drops... probably the unit when voltage is dropping slowly ( giant atx power supply ) are doing random things.. and one of these is the overwriting of the firmware by random s**t

[@DangerousPictures]

what do you think of open source tools like ddrescue and testdisk/photorec?

[@hddrecoveryservices]

From the very early start of my journey in data recovery, I was introduced to powerfully tools such as DDI and PC3000. I never used tools like ddrescue testdisk and photorec, so I can't say much about them. From what I hear, they do good with stuff they aim for

[@laboratorioassembler]

Opensource recovery tools are very very basic tools .. can help just for formatted drives or lost partitions ( and just fat/ntfs/ext ... no exotic file systems used on nas.. no hfs or apple fs... no raid recovery ... ) rstudio do not costs too much and is doing magics compared to these tools.

[@jfkastner]

Had two PNY with the Phison 3111, same "SATAFIRM" failure - they are DRAM-less and use memory inside the Phison to emulate DRAM - when you have a Power drop or Powerdown the internal Firmware gets overwritten by Accident, it goes into Safe Mode. Junk I will never buy again. **edit: At least that's the explanation I found after many Hours of searching. The Chips are OK, no need to de-solder etc. it's a crappy firmware problem, causing some corruption.

[@hddrecoveryservices]

the reason why I thought chips may need rework, was because the ID was coming up as PS3111, SATAFIRM S11 is a clear message of bad firmware due to lack of DRAM. IS with PS3111 without forcing of ROM mode is not something that I recall from the past

[@jfkastner]

@@hddrecoveryservices Love your work, well done. Mine were PNY CS900 240GB, I had backups, so I just threw them out, and bought Samsung EVOs. Not much more expensive! If I need some recovery I'll definitely send it to you!

[@itstheweirdguy]

I've had my fair share of Kingston A400 and PNY CS900 go bad. I've seen SATA FIRM S11 on both models. Some were under warranty and I RMA'ed them, and some weren't. Let's just say I gave up on RMA'ing the CS900 it's much worse than the A400 overall, they get crushed and thrown in the trash (PNY sent me a bad cs900 to replace a cs900 once). Mostly the kingston would have a drive life value that's bad and I'd clone it off and it would work, sometimes slowly though (in the instances where the firmware wasn't calling itself satafirm s11). Mad respect for PC3000 and the professional data recovery tools though. I'm a clonezilla, dd-rescue, gparted junkie. Master of windows partition surgery. If the drive don't read with ubuntu I don't take them apart that's a different industry! A lot of the time I can get a lock on things and not have to though, but if it doesn't run I'm not going to take it apart and ruin any chance of an expert genius who is a data recovery professional to get the stuff.

[@jfkastner]

@@itstheweirdguy I could get my CS900 into safemode/recovery mode (whatever you call it) via jumpers on the PCB but that was it, i found no firmware or flash tool for the 3111 that would work. Junk, sadly, mine were only a few months old but just past Warranty (as usual!)

[@ronlevin2339]

why SSD suddenly degrade so fast ?

[@hddrecoveryservices]

damaged firmware, wear leveling, lack of power for extended time

[@rosariodagosto6484]

I THINK THE DRIVE JUST HAD A SOFTWARE FAULT RESET AND IT WILL WORK AGAIN SORRY 😊😊😊 NO REWORK NEEDED SORRY ITS TRUTH

[@hddrecoveryservices]

You can't know this for sure until you rule it out. I've done many cases where this response means exactly what rework will fix. You say no rework needed but if you look in my feed, there are multiple videos that would support that it is needed. Just wasn't linked in this case

[@TECHNO_TURK]

Fuckingston never buy any ssd my 960GB broke after 2 days with satafirm s11