• SSD & Flash:
• SSD Recovery
• NVMe / M.2
• Samsung SSD
• Crucial
• Kingston
• SanDisk
• USB, Cards & Tape

• Hard Drives:
• Seagate
• Western Digital
• Toshiba
• Hitachi / HGST
• Samsung
• LaCie
• Fujitsu
• IBM
• Quantum / Maxtor
• Mac OS

SSD Data Recovery in London

Solid-state drives are fast and have no moving parts, but when they fail they tend to fail suddenly – the drive disappears from the BIOS, shows up with a tiny capacity, or locks itself in a read-only state. SSD recovery needs completely different tools from hard drive recovery, because the data is spread across flash chips by the drive’s controller and is usually encrypted by it.

Data Retrieval Ltd recovers data from SATA, M.2 and NVMe SSDs, external SSDs and the SSDs built into laptops. We work at the controller and firmware level using PC-3000 SSD, which lets us put a failed drive into a special technological mode and read the data back out.

SSD Types We Recover

Type	Examples
2.5-inch SATA SSD	Samsung 860/870 EVO and QVO, Crucial MX500 and BX500, Kingston A400 and KC600, WD Blue SA510, SanDisk Ultra 3D.
M.2 SATA & NVMe	PCIe Gen3, Gen4 and Gen5 NVMe drives in 2230, 2242 and 2280 sizes – see NVMe & M.2 recovery.
External / portable SSD	Samsung T7, T7 Shield and T9, SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro, Crucial X9/X10, WD My Passport SSD, LaCie Rugged SSD.
Laptop and OEM SSDs	SK hynix, Kioxia, Micron, Samsung PM-series and Western Digital SN-series drives fitted by Dell, HP, Lenovo and Microsoft.
Soldered storage	Apple T2 and Apple silicon Macs, some ultrabooks and tablets – recovery requires repairing the device’s board.
Enterprise SSD	SAS and U.2/U.3 NVMe SSDs in servers and all-flash arrays.

Common SSD Failures

• SSD not detected, or detected with a wrong name such as “SATAFIRM S11” or a capacity of a few MB
• Controller failure after a power cut or surge
• Firmware corruption or the drive locking itself into read-only mode as it wears out
• Worn-out NAND flash on heavily used or QLC drives
• Physical damage – cracked M.2 boards, burnt components, liquid damage
• Accidentally formatted or partition deleted (recoverable only if TRIM has not yet cleared the data)

How SSD Recovery Works

We first check the electronics and repair any power-circuit damage. For controller or firmware faults we load a specialist loader into the drive so it can be read without its damaged firmware, then build a complete image and extract your files from the copy. Most modern SSDs encrypt data automatically, so the drive’s own controller must be used to read it – that is why removing the flash chips (“chip-off”) is only possible on a small number of older, unencrypted models.

What to Do Before You Send Your Device

• Switch the device off and leave it off – every power cycle can make physical damage worse
• Do not run CHKDSK, Disk First Aid, fsck or recovery software on a drive that clicks, beeps or is slow
• Do not open the drive or swap the circuit board – modern boards hold drive-specific adaptive data
• Do not reinstall the operating system or initialise the disk when prompted
• Keep liquid-damaged devices unpowered and bring them in as quickly as possible

Why Choose Data Retrieval Ltd?

• Free initial assessment and a clear, no-obligation quote before any work starts
• In-house London laboratory – your device is never outsourced
• Cleanroom facilities for head, platter and motor work
• Professional tools including PC-3000 for firmware repair and imaging
• ICO registered (Reg No: ZA060744) – your data is handled under UK GDPR
• Same-day diagnostics, with an emergency service for business-critical cases

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does SSD data recovery cost?

It depends on the fault and the controller. After a free assessment we give you a fixed quote. See our pricing page for guide prices.

My SSD shows as SATAFIRM S11. Can you fix it?

Yes, this is a known firmware failure on drives with Phison controllers. The data is normally still in the flash; we recover it with a controller-specific loader.