Symptom first
SSD symptoms, and how long each gives you. Some of these can wait a week. One of them cannot wait the night.
An SSD does not click, whirr or grind. It fails quietly, and what it shows on screen is the only clue you get: a drive missing from the BIOS, a capacity of 0GB, a name you have never heard of, a folder that is suddenly empty. Each of those points at a different fault and asks a different thing of you tonight. Find yours below. Whatever it turns out to be, the first look is free, one SSD is £300 + VAT fixed in writing, and on most jobs no data means no bill.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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It has vanished, or it is there but wrong.
Rather begin with the hardware →It has vanished
Not detected in BIOSNo light, no drive letter, nothing in the BIOS. The controller did not finish starting; the flash usually did→Shows 0GB or the wrong sizeThe controller is up and its map is not. Do not partition, format or fix it→SATAFIRM S11 or an odd nameA Phison controller running from ROM. Not a virus, and not a job for the factory tool→After an update or a surgeA firmware write that stopped half-way, or a power stage that went. Both are bench jobs→Firmware and controller failureWhat firmware repair actually means on an SSD, and when the chips have to come off→Laptop or MacBook deadMost dead laptops have a healthy drive inside. Which to send, the drive or the machine→It is there, but wrong
Deleted files and TRIMThe one job measured in hours. Shut it down now and read this after→Slow, errors, read-onlyThe drive telling you it has run out of room to fail gracefully. Usually fully readable if imaged now→Encrypted and lockedBitLocker, FileVault, Opal. We recover the drive; you hold the key→Snapped, cracked or burntBoards repaired and connectors rebuilt. Do not straighten, glue or solder it yourself→Water or heat damageDry is not the same as safe. Bag it as it is and post it→The one rule that covers every symptom.
Switch it off, and leave it off. An SSD that is failing does not get better with another attempt, and it can get worse: the controller runs its own housekeeping every time it is powered, and on a drive with deleted files that housekeeping is erasing the very blocks you want back. On a drive with a firmware fault, each restart is another chance for the fallback code to write something over the service area. On a drive that is dropping out under load, each reconnect is another interrupted write.
The second rule is nearly as short. Do not run anything against it: not recovery software, not the maker's tool, not a firmware update, not a format to see whether it comes back. Software can only read what the controller presents, and a drive that shows 0GB or a strange name is presenting nothing. Every one of the pages above says the same thing in its own way, because it is the thing that most decides how a job turns out.
The questions that come up first.
Can data be recovered from a dead SSD?
Usually. Most dead SSDs have a firmware or controller fault with the flash intact behind it. The exception is a hardware-encrypted drive whose controller has physically failed; there the original controller has to be revived, because the flash alone is ciphertext. The free look tells you which yours is.
How quickly do I need to act?
For deleted files or a format, tonight: power it off and send the form. For everything else, promptly; days rather than hours, but do not keep using the drive.
Will recovery software work?
Only on a healthy drive with a damaged file system, and only where TRIM has not already run. It cannot see a drive that the BIOS cannot see, and on a deleted-file case every hour a scan runs is an hour of background erasing.
What does it cost?
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing before any chargeable work. Sets from £500 + VAT.
Not on the list?
Describe it on the form: what the screen says, what happened before, what you have tried. An engineer places it faster than any menu, and asking is free.