SDR / Every kind of SSD / Portable and external

USB-C · USB 3.2 · Thunderbolt · single-chip designs

Portable and external SSD recovery. Sometimes there is a drive inside it. Sometimes the whole thing is one chip.

Most portable SSDs are an ordinary NVMe or SATA drive with a USB bridge in front of it: an ASMedia, JMicron or Realtek chip that translates USB into the drive's own language. When the bridge or its solder fails, the drive behind it is often fine, and reading past the bridge is quick work. Newer and smaller designs put the controller, the bridge and the flash on one board or even in one package, and those need the controller revived or the flash read directly. The SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro portables that failed in numbers from 2023 are the ones we are sent most. Either way, a portable SSD is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing before any chargeable work, 3–5 days at the bench.

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

Portable SSD symptoms, and how long each gives you.

Not listed? Describe it on the form →

"The disk you attached was not readable by this computer", or Windows asks to format itA file system damaged by a disconnect, or a bridge or controller fault. Do not click Initialise.Do not delay

It mounts, then disconnects every few minutesBridge solder, a cable, or a controller crashing. Each disconnect can damage the file system further.Do not delay

No light, no mount, nothingThe bridge or the power stage. Often a quick bypass, if a separate drive sits inside.Everyday job

The USB-C socket is loose or has snappedBoard repair; the drive behind it is usually untouched.Everyday job

Deleted files, or an accidental formatSome bridges pass TRIM through and some do not. Shut it down either way.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.

Brand by brand, and what tends to go wrong.

SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro PortableFrom spring 2023 a wave of these failed with the "not readable" message. WD issued firmware for the 4TB models, a US class action followed, and a recovery lab blamed the hardware. The data is usually still on the flash.

Samsung T5, T7, T7 Shield and T9Samsung controller, Samsung bridge, hardware encryption. Send it with the cable; some units behave differently on a different one, and that tells us something.

WD My Passport SSD, Crucial X-series, Seagate One TouchAn NVMe or SATA drive behind a bridge on most models. The bridge fails; the drive does not.

LaCie Rugged, SanDisk Professional PRO-G40, Kingston XS2000Thunderbolt and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 designs with a full NVMe drive inside, read past the bridge when the bridge is the fault.

What the message actually means.

Describe yours to us →

What is going on	The usual reason for it	Where that leaves you
"The disk you attached was not readable by this computer"	File system damaged by a disconnect, or a bridge or controller fault	Do not click Initialise; recoverable in most cases
"You need to format the disk before you can use it"	The same, on Windows	Say no, and send it
Mounts, then vanishes	Bridge solder, cable or controller crash	Stop using it; image it before the file system suffers further
No light at all	Bridge or power stage	Often a quick bypass
Reads as 0 bytes, or the wrong size	The SSD behind the bridge is in ROM mode	SSD work, as for an internal drive
Very slow, then errors	Weak flash or an overheating controller	Image now

From the box arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →

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

Powered on our terms

A portable drive is opened and the SSD inside separated from its bridge, so that the drive can be read on its own interface where the bridge cannot get in the way. On single-board designs the bridge is bypassed at the board, and on single-chip designs the controller is brought up in its diagnostic state.

Vendor diagnostic modeNo hopeful reboots

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

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

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

What arrives most often

Never let Disk Utility repair or erase a portable SSD that is throwing errors. First Aid on a damaged APFS volume can make a bad situation permanent, and Erase does what it says.
Send the cable it came with. A drive that disconnects on one cable and not another is telling us where the fault is, and some bridges negotiate differently on different cables.
Many bridges pass TRIM through and some do not. A portable drive that had a file deleted may hold it far longer than an internal SSD would, or may not. Power it off either way and let the bench find out.
The 2023 SanDisk failures were not one thing. Firmware was updated for the 4TB models; a European recovery lab reported solder and component faults on the boards it examined; WD disputed that. On the bench the data has mostly been reachable either way.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · SDR-2026-0409JOB LOGGED ✓

A 2TB SanDisk Extreme Pro V2, unreadable the morning after a wedding

A photographer offloaded three cards onto the drive, ejected it, and next morning the Mac said the disk was not readable. Nothing was written to it after that, which mattered. The board showed a solder fault at the bridge; the SSD behind it was separated and read on its own interface, the APFS volume was put back together on the image, and every RAW file was accounted for. The client kept the photographer, and the photographer kept the client.

Every RAW file recovered4 days here, and back by post

Illustrative example — replace with a genuine case

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

Keep the original cable and send it
Note the exact model, including the capacity
Photograph any error message
Put it in a padded bag; it needs no anti-static wrapping if it is cased

What sets us back

Clicking Initialise, Format or Erase
Running First Aid on a damaged volume
Updating its firmware now
Opening the case yourself

Questions answered before you commit.

Is my SanDisk covered by the lawsuit?

The class action, Krum v. Western Digital, is in the United States. UK owners should keep the receipt and the failed drive, and recover the data first — a warranty replacement is a new empty drive, and the old one goes back to the maker.

Can you just bypass the USB part?

Often, yes, if a separate SSD sits inside. The drive is read on its own interface and the bridge is left out of it. On single-chip designs there is nothing to bypass, and the controller is worked on directly.

Is a single-chip portable recoverable?

Usually, through the original controller in its diagnostic state, and sometimes by reading the flash directly. We say which at the free look.

Should I install the firmware update SanDisk released?

Not on a drive that has already failed. The update is for working drives, and flashing a drive that is misbehaving is a risk to the data on it.

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 →Samsung →Western Digital →Crucial →Deleted files and TRIM →Snapped socket or connector →

Put it in an envelope with its cable.

That is most of what we need. The first look is free, the figure follows in writing, and on most jobs no data means no bill.

0800 6890668

Price my job Packing and posting

Every kind of SSD

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What it costs, and what follows