Recovering files from bad SSD

[mistera1]

Having just overcome the total failure of my Kingston SSD I thought I would document what I did to recover my files.
Windows would not recognize the drive at all, either installed internally or via USB. The drive had many files I needed and I had no backup. I gave up on repairing the drive and decided to reinstall Windows 7 and hope for the best in recovering my documents and photos. I figured that if I installed the same version that there would be a good chance that Windows would write its own files onto the same physical locations as before and so my personal documents would not be overwritten. That worked pretty well. Here's the procedure:
1. With the bad SSD installed internally I booted from the Windows 7 DVD and ran Windows install
2. Windows did initialize the SSD and installed Windows 7 onto it
3. The goal was to install nothing else on the drive. I found a free file recovery program and downloaded to a flash drive. I installed it on the flash drive and ran the program. Happily, all my personal documents were found. I copied them to a safe place.
The file recovery program I used was Recuva.
This was my third Kingston SSD to fail. They each lasted 3 to 4 years.
Probably others have better ideas on how to recover from a total SSD failure but this worked OK for me.

 

[Morbus]

Did you try booting a Linux distro? If you can acess the drive from Linux, you can probably recover the files without reinstalling Windows and risking unwanted overwrites.

:EDIT:
Could, I mean you could probably recover. Now all's well that ends well.

 

[Elixer]

Having just overcome the total failure of my Kingston SSD I thought I would document what I did to recover my files.
Windows would not recognize the drive at all, either installed internally or via USB. The drive had many files I needed and I had no backup. I gave up on repairing the drive and decided to reinstall Windows 7 and hope for the best in recovering my documents and photos. I figured that if I installed the same version that there would be a good chance that Windows would write its own files onto the same physical locations as before and so my personal documents would not be overwritten. That worked pretty well. Here's the procedure:
1. With the bad SSD installed internally I booted from the Windows 7 DVD and ran Windows install
2. Windows did initialize the SSD and installed Windows 7 onto it
3. The goal was to install nothing else on the drive. I found a free file recovery program and downloaded to a flash drive. I installed it on the flash drive and ran the program. Happily, all my personal documents were found. I copied them to a safe place.
The file recovery program I used was Recuva.
This was my third Kingston SSD to fail. They each lasted 3 to 4 years.
Probably others have better ideas on how to recover from a total SSD failure but this worked OK for me.

That was not a total SSD failure, that would have meant a SSD that you couldn't even access.
You basically, lucked out and got your documents back...
I guess people can try this as a long shot, but the better course of action would be to clone the SSD, then try a recovery on the clone.

 

[Phynaz]

Have you verified the documents you recovered? I find it very hard to believe an SSD would reuse the exact same flash locations for Windows reinstall.

 

[KingFatty]

When you say it failed, what were the symptoms? I don't understand how you can get anything to install on a failed SSD, shouldn't the computer fail to write to the drive if it's a failed SSD?

 

[mistera1]

To add more info to my original post, the SSD would not boot and was not recognized by Windows when I attached it to the USB of another system.
When I booted from the Windows 7 DVD with the SSD back in place I ran DISKPART. DISKPART did see the drive but reported the file system was "RAW" not NTFS. That was all I could get from DISKPART. I tried all the Windows repair tools that are on the DVD but got nowhere. Probably I should have tried some 3rd party recovery tools then but I decided to reinstall Windows. When I did reinstall Windows, I used the same version of Windows as before, even the same install DVD, so it seems logical that Windows would install onto the same physical locations as before and I assume that is what happened since I found my documents afterwards. I have not verified all my recovered files but have verified the ones that were most important. (These were Powerpoint and Excel files.)

 

[Elixer]

... When I did reinstall Windows, I used the same version of Windows as before, even the same install DVD, so it seems logical that Windows would install onto the same physical locations as before and I assume that is what happened since I found my documents afterwards. I have not verified all my recovered files but have verified the ones that were most important. (These were Powerpoint and Excel files.)

That is the thing though, it does not seem logical.
SSD's work very differently from a normal HD.
Once you format the SSD again, it should not have the same mappings as before, this is why I say you lucked out.
The SSD's controller shouldn't be using the same NAND cells as it did before, it should be rotating them around for wear leveling (so one NAND cell don't get used up too much and end up meeting its "death" too soon).

 

[jkauff]

I hope you now have a backup plan in place. A full image of an SSD doesn't take up much space.