840 to 990 Pro · T5 to T9 · PM-series OEM
A Samsung SSD is unusual: the controller, the firmware, the DRAM and the flash are all Samsung's own. There is no Phison or Silicon Motion routine to borrow, and the drives encrypt in hardware whether or not you ever set a password, so recovery has to go through a working Samsung controller rather than around it. It usually can. Most Samsung drives we see have a firmware fault or a failing controller in front of perfectly readable V-NAND: a 980 Pro locked read-only by its firmware, an 870 EVO from an early batch with rising uncorrectable errors, a T7 that disconnects. One Samsung SSD, SATA, NVMe or portable, is £300 + VAT after the free look, the figure written down before any chargeable work, 3–5 days at the bench, and on most jobs no data means no bill.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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| Family | Models | Controller commonly reported |
|---|---|---|
| SATA 2.5-inch | 840, 840 EVO and Pro, 850 EVO and Pro, 860 EVO, Pro and QVO, 870 EVO and QVO (MZ-7xxx) | Samsung MDX, MEX, MGX, MJX |
| NVMe M.2 | 950 Pro, 960 EVO and Pro, 970 EVO, EVO Plus and Pro, 980, 980 Pro (MZ-V8P), 990 EVO, 990 Pro (MZ-V9P), 9100 Pro | Samsung Polaris, Phoenix, Pablo, Elpis, Pascal, Presto |
| Portable | T5, T7, T7 Touch, T7 Shield, T9 (MU-PC, MU-PE, MU-PG) | Samsung, behind a Samsung bridge |
| OEM laptop drives | PM871, PM881, PM981 and 981a, PM991 and 991a, PM9A1, PM9B1, PM9C1 | Samsung |
| Enterprise | PM883, PM893, PM9A3, PM1643, PM1653, PM1725, PM1733, PM1735 | Samsung |
| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| 980 Pro locked read-only | The 3B2QGXA7 firmware fault, fixed by 5B2QGXA7 | Data usually readable; image it before any update |
| 990 Pro health dropping daily | Addressed by 1B2QJXD7; lost percentage is not restored | Not a recovery yet; back up |
| 870 EVO with Uncorrectable Error Count climbing | Weak flash in affected units | Image now; every read matters |
| Very slow reads of old files (840 EVO) | The documented read-degradation fault | Readable, slowly |
| SATAFIRM S11 on a Samsung label | Not a genuine Samsung | See the SATAFIRM page |
| Not in the BIOS, or at the wrong size | Firmware or controller fault with the flash intact | Recovered through the original controller |
| Read-only | Firmware protecting worn flash, or a documented firmware fault | Usually fully readable |
| Health falling fast in the maker's tool | Real wear, or a reporting fault | Back up now; a warning, not yet a recovery |
| Dead after a firmware update | The write stopped half-way | Loader in RAM; map from the service area |
A case number goes on it the day the parcel is opened, and an engineer settles what has actually failed before anything else happens. The drive is read on our own equipment, never in a computer that might send it a TRIM command. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.
Every power-on gives a failing SSD another chance to run its own housekeeping. Here the drive is brought up in the controller's diagnostic state instead, which lets the bench speak to the flash directly and keeps damaged firmware out of the conversation.
Working code is loaded into the controller's memory rather than onto the flash, the service area is read, and the translation table is rebuilt from what is there. Where the controller itself is dead, the chips are read one by one and the controller's scrambling and error correction are undone in software.
Nothing is worked on live. The whole drive is imaged once, weak pages retried in their own passes, and the file system is put back together on the image. Encrypted volumes are unlocked there too, with the key you supply, and never on the original.
What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.
A video editor's desktop drive stopped accepting writes half-way through an edit, and Magician offered the firmware update. The owner asked first, which was the right call. The drive was imaged read-only in full in six hours, with the project files checked by opening them before anything was invoiced. Only then was the drive retired.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseUsually. Most failures are firmware or controller faults with the flash intact. Because Samsung encrypts in hardware, the work runs through the original controller, and it usually can be brought back far enough to read.
No. Read-only means the drive has stopped accepting writes, not that it has lost what is there. Stop using it and have it imaged before any update is attempted.
Rising Uncorrectable Error Count and ECC Error Rate in CrystalDiskInfo are the signs owners report. Back up at once; if files already fail to copy, send it.
Warranty replaces the drive, not the data. Recover first, then claim; a replacement is a new empty drive, and the old one goes back to Samsung.
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing before any chargeable work.
That makes the drive predictable, and we know what to expect of it. The first look is free, and the figure is in writing before any chargeable work.