Can I FIX a Kingston 240GB SSD ?

In this video I attempt to fix a dead SSD (Solid-State Drive) sent in by Lee. It was in a laptop which suddenly seized and stopped working on New Years Day. It hasn't been apart before so I am the first to look inside. Will it be fixable enough to retrieve the data from it? Or will it need to be sent to a professional data recovery firm. Let's find out.
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Remember that this is just for entertainment and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things. I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things, so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series. Many thanks, Vince.

[@curtiskorb3494]

As soon as I saw your intro, I knew there was a Phison chip in there 🤬 I can confirm that Phison chip is in "Panic Mode", that's where the Satafirm comes in. The chip WORKS, but it's firmware is essentially bricked. I've successfully recovered 2 PNY CS900 drives with bricked firmware, but indeed the forced firmware flash was destructive to the data.

[@coctailrob]

Liking and replying so you comment sticks out. It is possible to chip-off data recovery from this situation but is super complicated due to the different ways the controllers and firmware organise the data blocks on the flash storage, with bad block remaps, XOR patterns, and other stuff. There’s a data recovery KZbin channel which covers this stuff, very interesting. Requires a investment in specialist hardware and software.

[@highpath4776]

can one replace the chip with a new one, and presumably the passive components to it

[@Patrik6920]

Warning!...This steps will be destructive to the drive ... ..first...replacing thes ship could make the drive working - BUT the data would be destroyed, and the data whats important...the drive itself isent... another solution is to cool the chip..it may be possibly just by adding a small heatsink/fan if ur lycky...otherwise second step would be to cool it to -70 deg celsius or so fairly slow (..to fast and it will die anyway, cooling in steps if possible)...once the data is recovered just toss it... ...if it still cant be recovered, bake the drive and or reseat the chips... if the chip still isent working thers not much to do at ur own hand... if the data was super important u would send it to a professional... ...if its important...always have ATLEAST one backup...

[@kawesu8781]

Fixed 1 PNY CS900 too with a firmware reflash.

[@laptoppakdosen3958]

where did you get the firmware from? is the firmware generic? i want it too just in case.

[@kxlleh]

Hey Vince, I've been watching your channel for couple of years now and just watched them for fun. But then I learned a lot more about electronics through your videos and just now fixed my nephews switch controller where I had to replace one analog stick. Big big thanks to you! Keep up the great content, really appreciate you! Take care.

[@pldaniels]

Hello Vince. In some ways these SSDs can be a bit depressing in how little physically seems to go wrong, leaving you with the undesirable task of either chip-off recovery + reorganisation or fighting with that controller. I've done a lot of work using ddrescue under linux and coupling it with a USB power switch that is controlled from the command line; so in situations like this you can craft a customised behaviour script that will let you do things like read 100MB, power cycle, read another 100MB etc, to save having to do the manual work you were experiencing. I suppose the "proper professional" solution here really is to have the chips removed, read off the data, and reassemble/decode it, usually things like PC3000 have all the decoding maps predefined for a lot of the controllers.

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks Paul. Probably a silly question but am I correct in thinking that even if I got an identical SSD and placed these 2 Kingston storage chips in the new SSD with a working Phison controller it still wouldn't work. The reball on the Kingston chips looks doable and the SSD are only £20-£30 on eBay, but I presume they are already connected via software together. Hope you're keeping well over there. I need to catch up on some PD vids, if you have any in mind that stand out let me know 👌👍👍👍

[@pldaniels]

@@Mymatevince I actually don't know to be honest; I suppose it would depend a lot on how the controller manages its remapped regions, ie does it keep it on the NANDs or internally in the controller. I'm sure someone with actual experience in that sort of task might weigh in.

[@Mymatevince]

@@pldaniels Thank you Paul 👌

[@northhankspin]

who gives a care. dont you have better things to do then save this garbage?

[@pldaniels]

@@northhankspin indeed - could be out making useless comments.

[@Lardzor]

I'd be tempted to just re-flow the PHISON controller chip. Not to remove the chip, just adding flux around the edges and get it hot enough to reflow the solder under the chip while trying to protect the NAND flash from getting too hot.

[@cosmefulanito5933]

This is not the problem. But the firmware.

[@bohmandy9611]

I fixed a couple of this by reflowing,copied the data to a new one.

[@buckykattnj]

I probably would have gotten a couple big old heat sinks and clamped them on either sides of the warm, larger chips with a little conductive grease. Maybe spray a little compressed air from time to time. Just see if it extends your window of good reads with the recovery software. Applying some light compression might also temporarily fix any cracked solder balls for the time being.

[@jhesski]

My though too maybe cool the heck out of that chip and see if it last longer. upside down compressed can air freeze it.

[@LegoDork]

I was struggling to recover a spinny drive that kept over heating and making me start over. it was winter and it was below freezing outside. I opened a window and stuck the exposed bottom of this particular laptop up against the screen. It took ages, but I successfully recovered the drive. Shit. I may still be using some of the remnants, and that was in, like, 2010. I still have the clone I made for sure. That was such a good win.

[@dbradford259]

We used to use a frying pan and blocks of ice during data recovery back in the day.

[@therealjammit]

Many years ago I had a spinning hard drive where the electronics kept overheating, so I got some dry ice and super cooled it while I got the data off it.

[@ligametis]

The chip itself and it's software is most likely faulty

[@danstone_0001]

The cap and resistor is probably a write protect, if you remove the shorting resistor in a working ssd, it may be used to write protect it.

[@nelsonmendes5008]

Hi Dan, i saw your comment and i have an usb pen that is not letting me do anything with it because it has write protection on and i can´t remove it...maybe it has that resistor blown.. do you think that could be the reason?

[@DataqRecovery]

Hey Vince. I've recovered a bunch of these, and it's usually the Phison controller stuck in something like safe mode or firmware update mode. Can usually recover them using the right (ie. Expensive) firmware tools without any further board repairs etc. (edited to add: Just checked my notes. In that fail mode they just return junk data or blank sectors, so the unplugging thing is probably a waste of time. Also that discolouration on the Phison controller might just be from a thermal pad inside the metal ssd shell. )

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge on these👍👍👍

[@DataqRecovery]

@@Mymatevince No problem. I'd be happy to take a look at it if you wanted to know if it can be done professionally?

[@Mymatevince]

@@DataqRecovery Thank you, it's back with it's originally owner now but I appreciate you offering 👍

[@florianoprescu2171]

hi. can you give me a quote on this? i have the same kingston drive with satafirm 11 fault

[@DataqRecovery]

@@florianoprescu2171 Hi. It would be £329 if successful. You can contact us on our website, and we'll reply with full info (link in bio) 👍

[@frankmathieson3029]

Might be worth plugging it into the SATA ports of your motherboard. In my experience those USB-SATA adapters aren't great at dealing with dodgy disks. However, having read some of the other comments, it almost definately the SSD controller so the recovery software may not work.

[@m2aimc]

Z tkt. tttv0

[@An4gram]

Definitely, this has worked for me for spinning disks and I see the card has a sata socket

[@EngelDerVerdammnis]

Just had the opposite with a faulty 2,5 HDD. Was able to recover data from it via USB, via Sata it won't get recognised but in general direct Sata is better in most cases. Exceptions confirm the rules I guess.

[@frankmathieson3029]

@@EngelDerVerdammnis Funny how an old comment suddenly gets more attention! As an update to my previous comment, I've recently been helping a friend with a new build, his 8tb Samsung SSD (fully working) is not recognised by the motherboard Sata at all but functions fine via a USB adapter!!!

[@Struders]

Fairly common issue with the A400 drives. The controller firmware gets corupted and make the drive unreadable. There are tools out their to reflash the firmware but this is destructive to the data! Essentially the data is gone short of sending it to a data recovery expert.

[@dillon4813]

omg that mini pc is so nice. Its perfect for repair and diagnosics. So tiny and mobile. I need one of those.

[@sjm4306]

It's more than likely a software problem, where the controller tapped out and corrupted the table that shows all the allocations/mapping for the data. With the way data gets written and deleted it needs to keep track of segmentation of data but if that table gets trashed then deciphering what goes where and in what order is pretty much impossible.

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks for the info SJM 👍 Looking at SATAFIRM S11 problems on Google suggest it is quite a common failure on these Phison chips. Apparently you can put firmware back onto it which will allow the SSD to work again, but the data will be erased. Hope you keeping well 👍

[@sjm4306]

@@Mymatevince Thanks, hope you've been well too. Keep up the interesting repair content!

[@stevemartyn203]

@@Mymatevince Hi Vince. Bit off topic but can I ask what make/model of the pc is? It would come in handy for my workshop. Thanks 👍

[@Mymatevince]

@@stevemartyn203 That is a 'GPD Pocket' Steve. I think they have released a couple more versions since that one 👍

[@patrickday4206]

Yeah it records all the bad blocks any corruption would make notes where everything is like a map. Nsa could make sense of it 😂

[@TampaTec]

Great info here, I didn't think of fixing a SSD. I do have 2 HDDs that I can't format for some reason, they're 1tb so worth keeping.

[@incandescentwithrage]

1TB HDD are pretty much worthlessness now, especially faulty. Just replace

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks Paul, shame I couldn't get the data out of them, I was hoping for a shorted capacitor 👍👍

[@samuraiedge3539]

What are you trying to format them from?

[@michaelthomas3646]

have you made sure they are the proper power supplies, and for the correct drive, because if you look at my comments you will see that it can be because of either driver related issues so needing a clean install, or by using the wrong power supply on the wrong drive. hope this helps.

[@TheSpotify95]

@@incandescentwithrage 1TB HDDs are OK but 500GB HDDs (or less) are worthless when 128GB SSDs (and 240GB SSDs) are cheap enough. 1TB SSDs are starting from about £35-£40 though so if you need 1TB, that's the way to go.

[@Peter-yg7ze]

I got Linux Zorin and there is a disctool that easely can fix problems with "confused" memorys ,I have "repaired"USB-sticks and SSDś a few times with no problems . . 🙂

[@jcon6734]

Great video as always. Word of advice though, with hard drives (mechanical or SSD) always try the software route first. If it's a hardware issue, recovery software failing won't prevent you from making a successful board repair. If it's something software could recover, attempting to fix a non-existent fault on the board could easily leave the drive in a state where recovery software won't work. On an unrelated note, don't tell my kid or dog that I said this, but your baby laptop might be the cutest thing I've seen all day.

[@InXsense]

Yes, and always is a good idea to try the software from the company of the ssd, I fix a ssd that work for 5 min. and then disappear for a faulty firmware, but to be able to use the software you need to use connected to sata to have the time for the firmware update, in usb was impossible.

[@tetsuoshiva]

I don't know, if the drive was showing symptoms of dying plugging it for a long time to obtain data might end up killing it for good even in the middle of obtaining it.

[@DragoNate]

the only problem with that is that, for a drive that's dying or basically dead, you have very limited time/attempts to use software as more read/write cycles can cause more damage, lowering your chances of successful recovery with each failed attempt.

[@martinthompson3940]

The disconnection issue may not a be a fault of the drive but the laptop your're using, it may need a permanent power connection like a direct connection in a Pc which is not reliant on the power from the USB only

[@nicoful86]

So what are they odds the guy who sent the ssd have a bad computer as well?

[@martinthompson3940]

@@nicoful86 You have missunderstood me, for the purpose of recovery a non USB power supply could be required, The SSD could be fine but has lost the MBR

[@michaelthomas3646]

@@nicoful86 can be pretty high, we don't know if it was pc or laptop, we don't know if the guy sent the usb connection that Vince used in this video, we don't know if it is the USB causing a boot loop with the SSD due to a lack of constant current enough to run the SSD, anything is speculation until we find out the facts.

[@michaelthomas3646]

I highly suspect you are right with your answer, sort of like using front panel usb on my fathers pc wouldn't allow my ssd in a usb dongle to work and came up with the same symptoms as this, but worked absolutely fine on my pc, and my brothers pc. hard drives/ssd's seem to need to draw more power/current than the front usb ports on a pc can handle, or I suspect the same with Vince's hand held device will allow on battery power. or could also be the usb lead itself. so too many variables rather than in a pc case using a pc case power and data cables.

[@brake_4_cake]

The powering off thing (probably) isn't the failed drive, it's more likely to be the USB power management

[@Dg-zj6jo]

sometimes if theres a shinny suface it can give the impression is hot on the the thermal camera iv found great stuff vince we always get enjoyment when your on brilliant

[@Dusta]

Hi Vince, the disconnect problem maybe a power down USB sleep, you can change that in windows settings under the Computer management -> device manager -> (the correct USB hub) -> power management tab, there is an option for `Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power`, also I would recomment using a Linux distro to do it there are loads of tools that may help

[@ovalwingnut]

Good call PG. Especially on using Linux. Also, plugging it in directly to a SATA buss (removing USB from the mix) might be a option. It's best to reduce everything to it lowest common denominator i.e. cut out the middle man :) Cheers!

[@JustaGuy316]

Yeah, even Gparted is far better than anything WIndows offers. I've saved the data off about half-dozen drives using Linux.

[@michaelthomas3646]

far more likely to be a boot loop with not enough current going into the ssd to power it up.

[@GadgetUK164]

I think if he doesnt want to send it away and accepts risk - I would be tempted to get flux around and under that controller IC and reflow it with hot air. Nothing to lose really! The fact it keeps disconnecting makes me wonder if something is intermittant somewhere.

[@vitor900000]

The controller is bad but there might still be a way to recover the data from the SSD. You see, because the controller is bad its most likely overheating and triggering a protection shutdown. What you can try to do is attach a heatsink with a fan to the controller to keep it from overheating and shutting down. Might give you enough time to scan the disk and extract the data.

[@MrMaxeemum]

I've had success before by putting it in the freezer for 15 minutes.

[@vitor900000]

@@MrMaxeemum The freezer would only keep it cool for a few seconds. If the data you want to recover is small and easy to access it would work but for a large data you would need constant cooling. Considering that his index date is gone he will need to do a full scan of the SSD to recover the data with will take several minutes.

[@MrMaxeemum]

@@vitor900000 It has worked for me before. It's worth a try as it can't do any harm.

[@jada1173]

Putt it in the freezer with long sata and powercable (no usb adapter) You just need a little improviced computer, maybe put together by old used parts that you can put close to the freezer..

[@lrrromicronpersei8294]

One other thing you can try when you have a chip that is running warm is to use your compressed air upside down to freeze it or (freezer spray if you have it) and try to keep it cool I know it wasn’t running that hot but If it’s drawing enough current that can cause your pc to power off the usb supply disconnecting the drive. Then when you unplug it and plug it back in it re supplies the power. Or a 2 into one usb cable so it gets power from 2 ports But nice try anyhoo

[@BuyitFixit]

Great Effort Vince. I agree with you and think that the SSD controller is bad. We can't fix everything! I'm not sure if a replacement chip would need configured with the size of flash chips, type, speed, and USB descriptors etc, so even getting a replacement chip might be more involved than just a swap. edit: Just an additional thought.. The SSD controller must be slightly working, as it does show up in device manager and reports the size correctly, so wondering if its the flash that is bad?

[@MayaPosch]

Bad Flash was my thought too. That the device still shows up says a lot, so it could be that the Flash chips are at fault, with the Phison controller trying to read from it, but repeatedly failing. Kingston is known for sourcing NAND Flash from a wide variety of sources, and reliability issues are common. Hope we get to learn what the actual issue is :)

[@Retroaria]

How about buy a similarly unit and replace/put the memory chip?

[@Bwong55]

@@Retroaria 55 seconds ago wow. anyways that would be an extremely hard and risky process as there are solder joints at the bottom of the chip which you cannot get to so the only way would be with a heat gun and a crap ton of flux.

[@MayaPosch]

@@Retroaria That's not an option. One property of NAND Flash chips is that heating them up destroys the data stored in them.

[@vitor900000]

@@Retroaria Many controllers also store structural date inside themselves. This structural date is related to how the controller will allocate data on the NAND chip. A new controller chip will make/have a different structural date inside with will make the data on the NAND chips read as gibberish.

[@Popeyes66]

What did you expect from a Rolls Royce Mechanic ?😂

[@Lee-lm7pk]

Sometime the boot block gets corrupted, just try formatting it and then use a data recovery software to access the deleted files, they should still be pretty much intact, but some maybe damaged

[@Dtr146]

Dude if he can fix this. He would revive a long forgotten trade of fixing SSDs. Because normally the nand flash or the controller goes.

[@Gary_Hun]

Actually that would be a nice feature, to be able to bypass the built in hardware controller with a software emulated virtual one, so if the data chip is still fine, no problem.

[@RSCOZZY]

These Kingston drives are utter crap. My company went through 100's of them before they changed to another manufacturer. They failed really quickly too. They were not used in harsh conditions, nor were they stressed. Good video Vince, excellent effort, and very interesting 👍

[@yotoprules9361]

Same problem here. I had maybe 8 drives and 6 failed in less than a year. Worst SSDs ever made.

[@hosam7609]

Never recover a sata device through a usb adapter, this will reduce the possibility of data recovery + It's always worth trying to access the drive using a Linux/Mac machine

[@lpoki8897]

People have mentioned Testdisk and Photorec which are both great and I'll add Linux. I find that Linux is a bit better at not refusing or getting confused about a drive that's wonky. And many awesome Linux distros are able to run from USB so you don't have to sweat about finding a PC to install it on.

[@headaega]

I agree.

[@craftymulligar]

Mighty nice of you taking it easy.

[@leenewby2563]

Hi Vince. Just watched :( .......No worries, thanks for trying ...... What brand of hard drive dock are you using? I couldn't even get it to show up at all. the video has only been up 30 minutes and there are already some program suggestions and tricks in the comments that I could try when I get the drive back. Thanks again for trying. ......

[@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842]

My first thought was to mount a heat sink on that controller and perhaps use a fan to further cool it down during recovery. It won't fix the drive, obviously, but it might solve the problem so that you can get the data out of there. Also, don't use random apps on windoze. They're prone to doing all sorts of nasty stuff. Personally, I use ddrescue to retrieve the data image and then TestDisk by cgsecurity (licensed under GPL) to look for data if I just can't mount it with kpartx and then mount the partition(s). I use Linux for such tasks.

[@corona6381]

What 'random' apps did he use? They're all well known, viable recovery options. Or did you just need an excuse to use your brilliantly original 'Windoze' dig?

[@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842]

​ @corona6381 ​I just wrote "random apps" as IMHO you never know what'll happen when you download something "free(ware)" for windoze. On Linux and other unices, you can choose to only use open source software which is tested by thousands and even if a small revision comes in (like a bad code insert), that will be tracable. With closed source, you never know. So, thereby the language used above.

[@Club_Michas]

If the Drive is unrecognize you can initialize it and also quick format the drive without loosing any Data. As long as you only quick format the drive it's just setting the First bit to 0 which let the PC think that it's empty, Only if you slow format or write Data to the drive it will overwrite files. I'm using O&O Recovery to recovery files from Drives that I can't access the normal way. I had a HDD that has a similar issue where I could access or run any recovery on it but after I used the clean command in diskpart I was able to run the Scan on the HDD with O&O Recovery and was able to recover files from the drive..

[@hasun1987]

What kind of cute laptop are you using?

[@enchantededition6879]

I so want that laptop 🤣

[@Boogie_the_cat]

It looks like an early GPD Win device. I think.

[@positivefix]

I had similar happen with a HD and it was due to it overheating, I sat it on a freezer block to keep the temp low and it stayed connected long enough to get the data off 👍

[@6581punk]

Overheating typically means a failing chip.

[@Ea-Nasir_Copper_Co]

That would be a great money-making scheme for those of us in Winnipeg. You could just take your device outside and wait a few minutes.

[@yourhalf01]

I've attached heatsinks with fans blowing and got similar results.

[@swedishspymuseum]

Since allow you to read the data for some time and the chip is "heated up" (I can confirm the discoloration), I would do a "brutal" test by cooling the chip with cooling spray and see it that changes its behaviour. It is non-distructive and sometimes, these smarter chips goes into "safe mode" when the die is heated up. I know too little about the Fison chip to say for certain however, it is safe to try and the behaviour is very typical os a processor freezing for being too hot.

[@kevinbrandwijk7146]

The ssd has had massive error and is now reporting it's controller name. The controller locked the ssd in an error state. before this happened the ssd would be named kingston + model number. I've experienced this too a few years ago when working at a pc store with a bad kingston ssd

[@conorwalsh9360]

Heirns boot USB, boot laptop off this image and ensure SSD is plugged in at the same time, it will allow you to see what files are recoverable or not without any repairs, can do a lot more with Linux but if you are comfortable with windows use Heirns boot USB and recover anything you can then go ham :) keep up the great content, absolutely loving the RR series :)

[@jostouw4366]

Do you mean Hirens boot usb?

[@richardhalliday6469]

Interesting video Vince, unusual content this one .( I always wear an earthing band/ wrist strap when working on such projects, static can be a problem )

[@Paperghost]

Teehee.

[@enoz.j3506]

Exactly, non powered electronic repairs without anti static wrist strap or basic earthing mat ,shows, haven't got a grasp of the important basics ,youtube has made everyone an engineer LOL

[@shadowplayer3000]

I enjoy watching your videos. I would like to see you practice reballing BGA chips. thanks for making great content.

[@hellooohowareudoing]

Great video. It also reminded me I need to do a back up...

[@zaca211]

I got about 40 of these drives in a box next to my desk. I already sent back another 40 or so drives to Kingston. All failing. They all seem to fail in the same way. The computer slows way down and when you run a block test, some blocks come back taking them more than 500ms to read if they read at all. The ones that failed all the way, show the same problem you are having.

[@tomasbergh]

Hi! Just for your knowledge. Those protection mats of siliconrubber are highly isolating and can give really high static voltages on the devices laid on them. Here my 0603 and even 0805 can thumbstone just from the static charge... /Tomas

[@tim9326]

@My Mate VINCE, Next time when you get to the device recovery phase where you are pulling the data off you may want to find some way to cool the chips down while under load. Not a guarantee but may aid in pulling the data off, by keeping the chips up long enough.

[@AndyDo]

Hey Vince! Unrelated to the fault on the drive, but I've seen the connect/disconnect behavior before on high speed USB ports. They spike power after a few minutes and the drive drops. The fix was to move it to another port or use a better USB-SATA adapter. Because their S11 chip is bad, it's likely still that, but it's a cheap check to swap ports and cables. I JUST had this issue two days ago with a Samsung 850 (not exactly a Cadillac) and an Uantec adapter. The adapter was at fault. Moving over to a StarTek fixed the issue.

[@michaelthomas3646]

I suspect you are partially right in your answer, but can also be related to the USB port power using a mobile device on battery power, but a full on tower pc can also have the same outcome like got an ssd in a usb dongle, works fine on my pc, my father plugged it into his pc the device shown this issue asking for the ssd to be reformatted, passed it to my brother to use in his pc, device worked properly and able to read the data, passed it back to my father same thing nothing happened apart from asking to re-format. tried it on my pc worked fine. so suspect it is how the electricity is allowed to pass through cables for front usb on my fathers pc, so allowing the voltage, but not allowing the current to pass through them so easy, so creating a boot loop.

[@dh2032]

@@michaelthomas3646 separating the power to come from bench supplie not try to get it from USB port, some box PC cases ports do just that, their own power in avoiding motherboard completely plus mulit meter how much power it is taking up too.

[@neddy1287]

Worse case people don't do the firmware updates on ssd is what I am guessing that it froze after awhile. That a price you paid for cheaping out. Most like the ssd controller is shot along with memory chip wrote off. You could try the freeze method using a air can upside down to spray on the ssd controller and memory chip to reduce the internal temperature to make it work again temporarily. Might give you a chance to back up something

[@ryan61384]

A really good recovery program I like using is called Recuva. This program is completely free to download and use.

[@lockjawbob]

Did you try the power cycle method? You have to power the drive with no data connection at all, not even to an enclosure. So best way is just the SATA power connector in a PC, leave data cable off. 30 mins on, 30 secs off, then 30 mins on again. This puts a lot of SSDs into a mode where they will try to rebuild their mapping. Worked for me a couple of times.

[@andrewmcallister7781]

The fact that the drive shows up in Windows and Disk Management isn't hanging implies it is a software problem of a corrupted partition. First port of call here would be to use data recovery software to see if you can recover the data from the drive. Shorted capacitor would normally take out a power rail and nothing would work. Just finished watching the video, good video

[@EvilDarkHawk]

Sometimes usb chips interfere with certain data access patterns leading to disconnects. Try restore when attached via sata.

[@jaimecosta2966]

Personaly I would format the drive them run the recovery software.. Saying that its time for Kingston to reduce the case by at least 50% Wish you well

[@technretro7115]

Also worth checking if its a heat issue with a component on the pcb thats making it power down. There are more elegant ways to test but if its only lasting say 10 mins then a quick and dirty way to see if its an overheating component is to tape up the drive in a sandwich bag and pop a bag of frozen peas on top to see if it lasts any longer. I have used this a number of times to clone mechanical drives that were powering down before attempting data recovery. Also if that chip has been subject to high temp then it may have been worth trying some liquid flux under it then a quick reflow. Great video and congrats on your pcb way sponsorship 👍🏻

[@game_master_rukia]

try a different hard drive enclosure and see what it does. also try a program called hard disk sentinel and see if it can recognize the drive and tell you the health so you can do a surface test

[@dddvvvzzz2012]

SATAFIRM S11 happens when the firmware in the Phison controller gets corrupted. There's a software out there to reflash it but it wipes the whole drive so it might not be of any use if you want the data. I Had a Silicon Power SSD with the satafirm problem and i manage to reflash the Phison controller and make the ssd work again. I'm sure this is a firmware problem and reflowing/adding a heatsink like others are suggesting won't solve the problem.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

Trying to read the SMART data from a drive that failed is one of the first things you should do, as it most of the time shows if there is an actual fault actively affecting the drives properties. if you cannot read Smart the drive is usually bricked, If you can read smart and it have failed in sensitive attributes there is probably used up or broken, if the Smart shows good and the drive is not working it is a chance of controller issues or corrupted data on the drive or firmware

[@PixelMaker04]

I, too, was about to mention testdisk but I see it has already been mentioned a few times.

[@Marcinvd1]

I had the same issue with my 960gb Kingston SSD. Software wont help apparently. I left it with the specialist to try to recover the lost data and they said that the most successful way to recover the data would be to find the same SSD with the same controller and get the memory chips from the faulty SSD and solder them on to the new one...

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks Martin, I was wondering if this was an option👍👍👍👍

[@hippynurd]

Wow, this is obviously a logical problem not a physical problem, well, at least not till you open it. This can very likely be resolved with recovery software. What I would do would start by making an image of the drive, and work on that to minimize reading from the questionable devices. Then recover the data from the image, put it on another device and send that back. If you contact the manufacturer, they can send you links to software to help get your data back, that should have been the users first step.

[@badyherz]

It would be interesting what Testdisk 7.2 would spit out. I mean the drive seems to be working. I used this program sometimes to get data from sd cards where the partition tables broke. Sometimes it can even repair the partition table, if not it can at least try to get all data off there. This will only really work if the drive is not hard formatted, after soft formatting, it will still find the old data. (Tried this for fun on multiple SD Cards).

[@InsertGame1]

Before taking it apart, try a new usb cable. A broken cable can act this way of showing you a device on the computer but not knowing what the device is. Also, try other usb ports on your computer or on another computer. If that fails, then start to look at your options for recover or repair.

[@countzero1136]

Hi Vince. Good attempt mate, but frankly if the controller chip is hosed then the only realistic way to recover the data would be to desolder the flash memory chips and hook them up to a suitable memory chip reader, and that's a royal pain in the ass - it is doable, but it's a hell of a lot of work as even if you could get the data back, it's likely to be highly fragmented and reconstructing will be a monumental task :(

[@dh2032]

if just photo's video's and it was mostly a just backup drive, the file will mostly be in single blocks, or right next to the reseeding part of the file? in the stored order? mostly?

[@countzero1136]

@@dh2032 I've found that ZAR (Zero Assumption Recovery) is a useful (and quite old now) tool for recovering files from corrupted or otherwise damaged hard drives, but I've never used it on flash memory, and even that won't be able to read a drive with a bad controller chip...

[@TerryDeSimone]

*** - Sometimes you can get away with buying the exact same drive, and swapping just the controller chip.. will work

[@icepee9252]

I wonder if chilling the controller chip might help the disconnection problem.

[@daves_channel1491]

Old school trick for the mechanical drives, 20 years ago I got someone's family photos from a once-in-a-lifetime family trip, they were really pleased, I made no promises, I also had the replacement hard drive for them, but the original hard drive was making a knocking sound, double bagged in a freezer, left overnight or few hours and then removed from the bags and freezer dried and wrapped in kitchen paper on top of the heating boiler and a few hours later, no condensation plugged it in and it came back to life. It was a fluke but they don't care they got the pictures back 🙂 I got the tip off the internet too!

[@TheCalebh3]

Your thumbnail looks very Jagex-y. I'm diggin' it, Vince.

[@paultasker7788]

I got a 2 TB SSD recently and it has a very odd fault. It works fine but it is incredibly slow. It took 5 hours to install the playstation software and when I gave up and repartitioned it for the PC it took over half an hour just to format it. Hard disk testers show it as incredibly slow too. That could possibly be a power issue with a capacitor. Smart values are bad so it's D.O.A. I put my old 1TB SSD into the ps4 and installed software in 5 minutes and runs quick. So you can use SSD in PS4. Now my PC is down 1TB of space now only having 500GB so would be great to fix but it's under warranty so I'll send it back as faulty. Unless you want it for a trying to fix video. That would be a kind thanks for all the videos I've enjoyed watching.

[@O1ez]

As a heads-up: These drives from Kingston are terrible. Bought 6 of them around 1.5 years ago. 3 of them are dead by now with very little read/writes. I couldn't recover data from any of them

[@eerotillanen8914]

One quite successful method I have used with normal HD's: freezing. Should work with SSD's as well. Faulty components seem to work better if the temperature is kept low.

[@MrRobarino]

No, that doesn't work with SSD's. Freezing a HDD only worked if the fault was due to a mechanical issue that prevented the platters from spinning or movement of the heads. The contraction and expansion of the metals was sometimes just enough to unstick the mechanism and get things moving again.

[@markwelch1836]

I bet it will get closer to fully read if you put the board in the freezer. Keeping to cold may solve the issue long enough to get the data.

[@marcosrobertogreiner]

I also have a Kingston drive, same size (240GB) which failed just the same as the one you reviewed here. Various recovery software I tried behaved exactly the same. Curious thing: when I opened the drive after seen your video, the board is different and there isn't one of those Phison chips inside. Also, when the disk failed, one of the first things I tried was to use Kingston tools to try to repair, access or at least reflash it. To my surprise, the Kingston tools didn't even recognize that a Kingston disk was attached to the computer at all (I was not using an USB adapter, but directly attached to another SATA port).

[@WoZYtaZ83071]

I dont know if you initialize ssd, but yes you must first initialize drive in disk manage settings, sometimes after that you must manualy add partition letter, data on disk are safe

[@zorsenothorse]

get a same drive and solder the nand onto a new one, job done

[@MickeyFKNMouse]

You can reflash the firmware to the controller. You would need to take the chip off and load it into a special tool to do it then use software on pc to either get it out of firmware mode or flash a new chip. It’s fairly easy to do but would mean buying new tools. Software is free and out there.

[@EthanShort]

the firmware for this can be flashed over the sata interface. no need to remove the controller

[@dazealex]

@@EthanShort Any leads on the software needed for this? I have a similar drive, that just fails to get recognized at all. I don't care about the data on it...

[@coctailrob]

@@dazealex If I remember correctly there was 3 downloads required. One piece of software that identifies the version of the firmware and model of the NANDs. One collection of firmwares. And the software that creates the firmware flasher.

[@bezerker]

"SATAFIRM S11" is sign of corrupted firmware of a drive (Kingstons speciality...). Without bin file for specific part number of disk (there's plenty of them in same looking casing) is nearly impossible to recover ssd to operating state.

[@craftymulligar]

If you get some of those broken powered hard drives. You can always save the power supply module for other mechanical drives. But those are solid state.

[@bobbymak6964]

Your investigation was helpful. A professional would replace the faulty chip and get the SSD to work again to pull out the data.

[@madhampster]

In my business I tell customers its not if the drive will fail but when will the drive fail. Always backup all data.

[@patricktrakzel9657]

Just buy a new similar disk and swap out the Phison chip. Make sure the builds are similar. Get the old chip of, reball the area with a mask ), get the new chip on, and get the data backed up. You could also swap the memory chips of the old board onto the new one ( if they are build the same way ). Never underestimate the importance of a backup ( or better 2 where you keep the second backup at a relatives or a friends house ).

[@MagikGimp]

"Just" ;)

[@cosmefulanito5933]

Problem is the firmware. Not the hardware.

[@denisohbrien]

I do automotive repair, when you see discoloration like you noted on that chip its 100% dead, iv seen them go so far as to leave an obvious almost xray like silhouette of the leadframe package on the surface due to heat. in the automotive world its usualy easier to spot from bubbling or discoloured conformal coating, but intereor protected devices like say an airbag controller may not have conformal and exhibit what you show here.

[@RobsBodgecast]

Connect it to a Linux box, after checking for any variations of the locked status (hdparm or smartctl etc...), you could throw a couple of lines of bash script together to disconnect and reconnect the USB I/O, while pausing/re-synching the scan repair and data retrieval.

[@alltechrepairs1495]

Nicely done. Very comprehensive.

[@Holycurative9610]

As someone who has repaired laptops for the last 15 years I can confirm that the Phison chip is a failure point on Kingston SSD's and has been a problem in some flash drives although I've only seen 2 in all the time I've been repairing things. Using software to recover data is a failure in a lot of cases if it's a hardware problem, the only thing you could do is to reflash the firmware on the chip but that's a more specialist thing and would only work if the chip itself is working. I've never used DDRescue but I know people who have had a great deal of success with it, I tend to stay away from drive failures and replace them if they're broken. More people use cloud storage for backups now (or they should) if they're dealing with more important files, or they want to keep their family pics when a drive fails, so drive recovery was never something I was that interested in.

[@rciancia]

Vince, how do you know your friend has a Windows PC. ? It could be a MAC or Linux, etc.. the file system would be different . Just something to consider

[@dh2032]

yes, could be anything, NTFS, WIN31 WIN16,and that just if it a PC disk, and that even near a full list option?

[@DugiDevetCarabolium]

Because SSD is not here to store your important DATA, its here to speed up your windows, programs and games. SSD is not for your important family photos and videos that needs to be saved, save that on HDD because once SSD stop working is dead for good and there is no way to save any data like from HDD. DO NOT STORE YOUR PERSONAL IMPORTANT DATA TO SSD, NEVER!!!!!!!!! Use it just for windows, games and programs, but project saves like Producer or photo edit always save on extra HDD to be SAFE! Never save anything important to you on SSD, NEVER!

[@paulwilliams2080]

Bake it, laid absolutely flat, to reflow the soldering to the chip. I forget the exact temperature and time but it will be on the net somewhere.

[@DigitalDiabloUK]

Photorec in Linux is the best tool I've found for sw recovery. But I had a similar drive that failed after a short period of time. However I managed to DD the data from it to an exact same model disk, but had to put the failing drive in a bag in the freezer during the copy, as it seemed to be a heat related issue.

[@kgerakopoulos]

It is always the controller, that is why I buy ssd depending on the controller. Samsung has one of the best

[@baghdadiabdellatif1581]

The 5 volt is faulty it shows 4.8v. Use an external power supply to supply 5 volt and the controler will start. 4.8V mean that there is partial short on the controler. Use the external power supply and quickly copy your data. Use a heatsink to buy more time to finish copying the Data. Thank you

[@user-jh6vq8wg6d]

That 0 amp resistor was actually a fuse designed that way to blow in case capacitor next to it would get overloaded with power (short to ground) great job gg my boi

[@digihorse6730]

Totally agree about the heat sink attempt. Also use Linux. Also if you know someone with a copy of SPINRITE maybe that might work. Also i would attempt with the drive fitted directly to a computer on the SATA connections not USB.

[@jonpeley]

To reflash the firmware you HAVE to connect it directly to SATA, never to USB.

[@djtwo2]

When my SSD failed I found an online article that gave me something that worked. Essentially this said to go through several cycles of just having the SSD powered with no data going to it for 10-15 minutes, then switching the power off. Just sitting at the BIOS screen was enough to do this.This gave something that then be accessed from Windows as usual, including reformatting. The previous data could mostly be copied out into new files using the free program "Recuva" from the people who do "Ccleaner". Apparently, this way of resetting was forced on all SSD manufacturers.

[@walterroszko6841]

Vince don't forget to torque the brake nuts!

[@DDICyber]

its the firmware the phison chip is in firmware update mode and the partion you try to recover is the one from the phison chip itself

[@kareno8634]

*Bravo Vince!* I always enjoy watching even tho i have yet to grasp the workings of electronics. I get a kick out of the 'glee' in your voice when you say, 'Oh Joy something [else] is wrong'. haha Seeing you attempt a fix without knowing exactly how item works, helps add More understanding.^ That too may support the fact to not become so upset when One 'fails' accomplishing their goal[s]. (whatever the subject) Cheers! ^ long story, short - Phrase: 'Try, try again' is Not complete, i've come to ask, at what point does One look like a Fool? lol

[@adilchaine1975]

Adil (OYH ) « Open your Machine

[@Box223]

I've always been curious about SSD repairability and what actually goes wrong when they quit working. As I'm typing this, I haven't watched the video yet. I think I'll enjoy!

[@Box223]

Although this wasn't as enjoyable as I was hoping, I still enjoyed. I don't think the software will fix anything at all. I would try Linux Mint, but that probably won't work either.

[@EthanShort]

I have had this issue with one of these before. First of all I'm pretty sure the data is gone. There's nothing electrically wrong with the drive its just bad firmware on the Phison controller. If I remember correctly, the controller has forgot where all the data is located on the flash so the data is there its just impossible to unscramble. The drive can be fixed by reflashing the firmware. No tools needed only software. The drive I fixed still works to this day. Remember to ALWAYS keep backups of important data.

[@MultiVoiceofreason]

I'm surprised you didn't try adding hard pressure evenly across the chips to eliminate cracked solder ball or dry ball. Got to be worth a go? Although i do agree phison chips appear to be "Friday specials" for poets day! 🤣

[@Mymatevince]

🤣 I have tried that since and also tried cooling the chips. They behaved the same as the video unfortunately 👍

[@2009numan]

you should have tried connecting it with the cap and resistor removed Vince

[@YourAverageGamer991]

thank you

[@JohanlastZa]

I once had to do data recovery on a mac hard drive that kept going haywire. There was a heat build-up that caused the board to freak out. I cooled it using ice bricks and I was able to recover 100% of the data for the customer.

[@Gogoseit]

sure fire way to get the data off of the drive would be to remove the storage chip and either put it on a new board or a specialized tol which is basically just a new board but with a socket so you don't have to reflow it