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SDR / Manufacturers / Western Digital

WD Blue · WD_BLACK · WD Red · WD Green · My Passport SSD

Western Digital SSD data recovery. Now SanDisk's drives in WD's colours, and mostly WD's own controllers.

Western Digital completed the separation of its flash business on 21 February 2025, and since then the WD Blue, WD_BLACK and WD Red SSD lines have belonged to SanDisk. The drives in your machine still say WD, most of them run WD's in-house controllers on BiCS flash, and they encrypt in hardware, so recovery runs through the original controller. The SN550 is the one with a history: in June 2021 its flash was changed and its firmware updated without a change of name, and the later revision writes far slower once its cache is full. One WD SSD is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing, 3–5 days at the bench, and on most jobs no data means no bill.

Free first lookOne fixed figure in writingNo data, no bill on most jobsReturn postage paid

Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668

Models we see, family by family.

Which kind of drive is it →
Family Models Controller commonly reported
WD BlueBlue 3D NAND SATA (WDS…B2B0A), SA510 (SATA and M.2), SN500, SN550, SN570, SN580, SN5000Marvell (3D SATA) · WD in-house (SN-series)
WD_BLACKSN750, SN750 SE, SN770, SN770M, SN850, SN850X, SN8100, P40 Game Drive SSDWD in-house · SN770 and SN850 families
WD Red and WD GreenRed SA500 (SATA), Red SN700 (NVMe); Green SATA and M.2, Green SN350WD in-house · third-party on some Green
PortableMy Passport SSD, My Passport Go, Elements SE SSDWD or SanDisk, behind a USB bridge
EnterpriseUltrastar DC SN640, SN650, SN840, SN861; SS530, SS540WD in-house

What tends to go wrong on a Western Digital.

SN550 flash swap, June 2021WD's statement: the NAND in the WD Blue SN550 was replaced and the firmware updated. In Tom's Hardware's 100GB copy test the later revision fell from about 610MB/s to 390MB/s once its 12GB cache was exhausted. A slow SN550 is behaving as its revision does; a missing one is not.
My Passport SSD and the 2023 SanDisk failuresWD's My Passport SSD shares hardware with the SanDisk Extreme portables that failed in numbers from spring 2023. The same not-readable message, the same recovery. There is more on the SanDisk page.
WD_BLACK in a PS5A drive from a PlayStation 5 is encrypted to the console. It can be imaged, but the files are readable only through the console. We say so at the free look, and ask whether the console is available.
General pattern: controller and firmwareNo other specific WD SSD fault was documented in our research. What we see is the general pattern for in-house, hardware-encrypted drives: firmware that will not load, a controller that has stopped, and flash that is fine behind it.

Western Digital symptoms, and how long each gives you.

Not listed? Describe it on the form →
It is not in the BIOS at allThe controller did not finish starting. The flash is almost always sound.Do not delay
It shows the wrong size, or a strange nameFallback firmware; the map is not loaded.Do not delay
It has gone read-onlySpare blocks exhausted, or a documented firmware fault. Readable.Everyday job
Slow, with files that will not copyWeak pages being retried. Image it now.Everyday job
Deleted, or formattedTRIM is at work. Shut down and leave it off.Do not delay
Packing it and posting it: a bare SSD travels in an anti-static bag inside a small padded box, with nothing able to move. Insure it for what the files are worth rather than the price of the drive, and use a tracked service. The posting address is not printed anywhere on this site; it arrives by email in reply to the form, with a booking sheet to print; the sheet inside the parcel is what matches it to your enquiry when it is opened. Or hand the sealed parcel in at the nearest of ten drop-off points, your name on the outside and the sheet inside; say where you are on the form and it comes by email. We pay the postage home either way. The whole of it is written up on the guide to packing and posting.

What the message means on a Western Digital.

Describe yours to us →
What you see The usual reason Where that leaves you
SN550 much slower after a big copyThe 2021 flash revision once its cache is fullNormal for that revision
My Passport SSD not readableThe 2023 portable fault, or a bridgeSee the SanDisk page; recoverable
A WD_BLACK out of a PS5 that shows nothing on a PCConsole encryptionImaged; readable only via the console
Not in the BIOS, or at the wrong sizeFirmware or controller fault with the flash intactRecovered through the original controller
Read-onlyFirmware protecting worn flash, or a documented firmware faultUsually fully readable
Health falling fast in the maker's toolReal wear, or a reporting faultBack up now; a warning, not yet a recovery
Dead after a firmware updateThe write stopped half-wayLoader in RAM; map from the service area

From the box arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →
01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

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.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNo TRIM, no writes
02

Powered on our terms

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.

Vendor diagnostic modeNo hopeful reboots
03

Past the fault, to the map

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.

Loader in RAM, never on the flashMapping tables put back together
04

A full image, then the volume

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.

One careful imageThe volume verified end to end
05

You see the file list before you pay

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.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the job3–5 days at the bench

From the bench

  • WD's own controllers encrypt in hardware. A dead controller is revived rather than worked around, because the flash alone is ciphertext.
  • The WD Dashboard is for healthy drives. Its firmware update should never be run on a drive that is already missing or misbehaving.
  • Blue, Black and Red are marketing tiers, not families. The SN-series numbers tell us more than the colour does.
  • In-house controllers encrypt in hardware, whether or not you ever set a password. The flash read on its own is ciphertext, so recovery runs through the original controller, which usually can be revived.
  • There is no third-party routine to borrow. The maker's own diagnostic state is the way in, and the bench knows it family by family.
  • Do not run the maker's tool on a drive already misbehaving. Its firmware update and its optimisation both write to the drive.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · SDR-2026-0417JOB LOGGED ✓

A 1TB WD_BLACK SN770 that went missing after a Windows update

A Lenovo laptop stopped at a black screen after an update, and the BIOS no longer listed a drive. The stick came out and came here on its own. In the controller's diagnostic state it answered with its map intact but two firmware modules damaged; a temporary loader brought it up read-only and a full image took eleven hours. A decade of a photographer's edits opened first time.

99.6% of files recovered4 days here, and back by post
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine case

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Power it off and leave it off
  • Note the firmware version if the maker's tool still shows it
  • Tell us whether BitLocker or FileVault was on
  • Send the bare drive

What sets us back

  • Running Secure Erase, optimisation or a firmware update
  • Letting Windows initialise it
  • Putting it in a USB enclosure to test
  • Sending it to a shop for a controller swap — it does not work that way

Questions answered before you commit.

Is WD now SanDisk?

For SSDs, yes. SanDisk separated from Western Digital on 21 February 2025 and took the flash business, including the WD-branded SSD lines, with it. Western Digital kept the hard disks.

Can you recover a WD_BLACK from a PS5?

The drive can be imaged. The data is encrypted to the console, so it is readable only through that console; we ask at the free look whether you have it.

My SN550 is slower than my friend's. Is it failing?

Probably not. Drives made from mid-2021 use different flash and write much more slowly once the cache is full. A drive that is slow is a revision; a drive that vanishes is a fault.

What does it cost?

£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing.

How long does it take?

3–5 days at the bench after the free look.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

SanDisk →NVMe M.2 →SATA 2.5-inch →Portable SSDs →Not detected →

Nothing gets worse while the power is off.

Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the drive switched off.

0800 6890668

Price my jobPacking and posting