Bitcoin Forum

  I have harddisk SSD external encrypted on true crypt  , it stop working ( guess board not getting electric ) ,( 1 year ago )

  My MISTAKE I let some people non professional work on  it , I am not sure if they fuck the chips or not yet

  Brand is : Kingston 250 GB


  Is there any hope, any ideas how to fix it .

  Please comment , ethically and gentleman agreement , who help me in an idea never thought about or it may this success or work i will hit back a message
  with 1 BTC as GIFT.




  Photo for harddisk : https://pasteboard.co/JJU6WUs.jpg

Since it was physically damaged there is no way to recover it on your own using softwares. The only way is to find a genuine professional to work on this and get your BTC if you are lucky.

Better find the professional in your country itself.

In my country i show to best company they say can not do  anything.
They are not so professional companies , mostly they recover harddisk if data corrupted. but not physically damage.


I want opinion if there is a chance or no.

If so then try to find them online.

Found some professional recovery services by myself and this one looks trusted : https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/devices-supported/solid-state-drive-ssd-data-recovery/

But I can't vouch for them since I never used their services. So better contact them and try if there is any chance. You can find their contact details on the page itself.

Do you think i have chance ? like logically , because it is encrypted.

The hard drive is physically damaged or only the filesystem? Are you sure, I mean absolutely sure it's an hardware failure?
If it's an hardware failure, you need to first find what electronic components are damaged. There might be components that can be easily replaced with no harm. But there are also others that probably make it impossible to recover data!

If data is encrypted or not, doesn't matter if the damage is physical. If you have the passwords/keys/etc to decrypt the data, then, doesn't matter if it is a hardware failure or software failure. If the problem can be fixed and you don't have the means to decrypt the data, then, it is useless to fix the drive!

if the problem is a physically / hardware damage (SSD print, chips for firmware, power supply, etc... not the storage chips itself),
it should be possible for good hardware guys / engineer to e.g. SMD soldering the
chips and transfer them to a "new" plattfrom where you can run the disc. Other option could be to copy the chips 1:1
use it on a good SSD... (you need prof. hardware for this jobs!! and experiance!!)
Anyway this is a job for a professional (engineer) only.
Toshiba chip for storage is: TH58TEG8DDJTA20

software: data encrypt shouldn't be the problem as you - hopefully - know the key/password...

Bye

PS: shouldn't ne size 240GB?

Thanks alot for your information


Waiting more recommendation and information / companies guys

Will you be able to decrypt it?
If so, I guess you have chances to fix the SSD and make it usable. In my country, I have seen one professional who has fixed more physically damaged drive (I assumed your SSD is far better). It would be good to know where do you live (share if you have no problem).

It's simple.
There are 8 chips so you have a 1 on 8 chance that it is corrupted due to a hardware failure.
This means that chances are relatively high that the data is still intact.

If that was my drive i would pull a extended S.M.A.R.T report in Gnome Disks (read-only).
But you can only do so if the drive still communicates with the SATA bus.

Otherwise step one is that you will have to try to recover the data from each of these chips.
You can do this with a test clip socket adapter.

I see it the same way others do, technically spoken it's time consuming to restore, but possible.
The "chips", there should be 16 x storage chips, also on the front side? Then there some other kind of stuff for
firmware and comunication SATA, etc... which can also be broken, you (restoring person) can check each to know,
where's the fault and do a exchange or renew this parts.

So the company you contact, should IMHO exactly explain how the want to make the repair/restoring, etc...
so you know the conept they want to use.

Bye

Thanks guys alot ,

Any recommended Companies for recovery.

Where are you from?

I encourage you to restore the data yourself.
Trust no one.
If you hand it over to some external tech company chances are that they will tell you the data can not be recovered.
And the next thing you will see is that the funds have left the address.
Good thing it is encrypted.

In general, physical data recovery is not a DIY-thing.

That I can agree on. But OP will have to find some middle ground.

A simple search "SSD data recovery" gives me many options to choose from, and many offer "no cure no pay".

Find a company that's experienced in physical recovery, then travel there (by yourself, with the disk).

Guys .. Recovery companies request encryption password to do the recovery ?

they said it is not possible without it .


How far this is true ?

Well there you go that's a lie.
They only need that to steal your crypto.
They should hand you a raw encrypted backup.

It depends: if they get the entire disk to work, they can just create a raw copy of the entire encrypted partition. But if they can only do a partial recovery of the physical disk, they won't be able to recover individual files without the password.

You may be better off asking those questions on a more specialized forum. Leave out the part about 70 Bitcoin, that's irrelevant (until the files are actually recovered).

Don't listen to people who tell you to give away that drive.
All you can do is cry when you discover they took your coins.
You will have to become a professional and do it yourself.
Trust no one.

Whatever you do don't give your drive to anyone, even companies. Once they do find out what you have on the disk (because they will have full access to it during their recovery steps).
Have you tried searching google for someone in the same shoes that yourself? Granted that they wouldn't be able to access your BTC since they don't know the code but they could take the file and delete it (and then claim that they weren't able to recover the files).

Are you willing to risk that? What model are we talking about here, could you share it? Perhaps we could try to give you some recommendations based on what you tell us about.

Guys thanks for the comments

I found this company

https://www.acelaboratory.com/pc3000-ssd.php


This may work ?

Again, if you do end up finding a service that may recover your disk I wouldn't give them your key to decrypt the disk since I don't think they need it to recover the device. Have you made this question in a more specialized forum ?

Iam ordering the machine itself.

No this will not work because those are targeted at PCIe SSD and yours is different from that.
And even if it worked you can use Gnome Disks (which is free) to pull an extended S.M.A.R.T report.
But like i said this will only work if the firmware still boots and the drive still communicates with the SATA interface bus.

If your hardware is damaged you will have to pull the raw data from each of the chips one by one.
But i do not think this is the case i have rarely ever seen this.

You did not tell much about how this problem arise.
Maybe the drive was full, some drives cycles sectors to extend lifetime and if there is a problem the firmware will lock the drive and prevent read write access.
Or maybe you live in a country that has a dirty mains electricity with many spikes present, for example when you are living close to some industrial area where there are factories that operate huge motors that fire spikes and over voltage back into the mains lines, of course such events can damage your sensitive computer equipment.

You can examine the circuit board most usually have a small fuse, if it's possible for you to find the datasheet you can examine the levels of the components with a voltmeter.
Many times the components are numbered C1 R6 F1 D5 or Q8 and etc. You can see C stands for Capacitor, R stands for Resistor and F stands for Fuse D is Diode and Q is a Transistor or IC.

Normally there is only one Fuse so that would be F1 and it is placed right after the power plug where the power enters the circuit board. You can check this Fuse with a voltmeter on the resistor or Ohm setting if it shows 0.00 the Fuse is good if it shows OL or OPEN LOOP then the Fuse is bad and it most likely saved the rest of the hardware when it burned through. This is it's purpose this is why it is there. Then you have to replace the fuse and the thing will come back to life again. If you have doubts about any of this then do not make any attempt or action and first study and look at examples until you feel comfortable to dive in.
  
Those are just some examples of what could be wrong. We do not know the current condition of the drive whether it still communicates of is a 100% dead. So if you really want useful advice we would have to know a bit more about the current status of the device.

https://i.ibb.co/nrr9cX9/SMARTSATA.png (https://ibb.co/fMMfp3f)

https://i.ibb.co/Mh17PKm/SMART.png (https://ibb.co/cv8Q2Rj)

Hello my friend , i have very little background about Technical - but all i know is suddenly it stop working and i tried somepople to examine it in terms of fuse , and all boards -
1 year back , with no success , i do not know already if they create bigger damage because 2 of them was non proffestional .
The only thing i have left i think is with Chip reading and moving data to new Harddisk .

This machine as they explain for me , act as board + cpu for the chips , which you can copy them to Other Hd.
I did not understand the comment at the machine you did , seems interesting i will copy the message to my friend lets see.

Do you think 100 % no hope with this machine?

The ssd when put in computer can not get any signal or any sound or anything.

I think there is at least 80% hope.
But you need the right skills and tools to get it done.
Reading your last query it appears to me that the best route from here is to go on and extract the raw data from each of these NAND chips.
Once extracted you can mount the image in read only mode to examine it further, and possibly decrypt whatever part is left of it.
Your are lucky because sometimes these chips are baked onto the board with the connections on the bottom side leaving them unreachable. In your case the connections are on the sides which makes them accessible with needle or test clip adapters to access the data.
You can see on youtube some repair men have a channel and they will demonstrate to you the process of repair and recovery and much can be learned from there.
It's important however that you have the key to decrypt the data otherwise that obstacle would reduce my expectations from 80 to about 1~5 % and i would consider the funds lost.
Did you say you used Truecrypt ? or Veracrypt ??
If you have the key and the data is there then there is no reason to give up yet.

With the basic PC-3000 set, you can use the power of the PC-3000 technologies for recovering data from HDD and SSD at the lowest possible price!

Basic PC-3000 UDMA SSD Set
(PC-3000 UDMA + DE UDMA + PC-3000 SSD)

Recommended to buy with this Basic PC-3000 Set: SATA-mSATA, SATA-M.2 and PC PATA-SATA (SSD) adapters at the special price 199 EUR for all of them.

THE BIGGEST DISCOUNTS FOR THE PC-3000 PROFESSIONAL SYSTEMS

Equip your lab with the all-powerful PC-3000 professional systems such as the newest PC-3000 Portable III, the well-established PC-3000 Express including the RAID and SSD add-ons, the fastest PC-3000 SAS including the RAID add-on, and the leading tool in NAND Flash data recovery — PC-3000 Flash.

PC-3000 Portable III System (or SSD/RAID/Ultimate System) NEW!   

20% discount
PC-3000 Express System (or SSD/RAID/Ultimate System)
PC-3000 SAS System (or RAID System)
PC-3000 Flash ver.4.0 (Basic Package, Basic Package + Spider Board Adapter, All-in-One Package)

Also, you can see the extra adapters included in the SSD/RAID/Ultimate Systems and the regular prices without discounts in the attached Price List for the PC-3000 Products.




For the part pf psi , those connecters are available , what do you think ?

Also regarding your 80 % did you look at the photo of the chips ? and know they still Ok ?
Thanks

If that drive is dead then i am afraid that utility will not help.
I think it's one of the most expensive solutions those prices are ridiculous.

And yes i think these NAND chips are fine.
The biggest problem is that the data is scattered across them.

Guys thanks again for the feedback. make sure am a man with honor i pledge to contact all who interact here if it work for NICE CASH bonus if this work . thank you.


I learned maybe that the controller inside the SSD is broken, and this maybe encrypted low level language , can PC 3000 overpass it or anyway ,
maybe i can call the company for a production of same model controller since i have the serial number?

Advice please with opinions.

How did you find what is the source of problem?

https://dfarq.homeip.net/fix-dead-ssd/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYkzcw1Z47c

I'm not exactly a hardware guy but from the picture of the broken board you posted, you don't have a broken SATA or SSD controller, one of your eight NAND flash controllers are busted. You can see a white background around one of the chips. Hopefully your wallet file was not on it.

Trying to repair it is a waste of time since the data on that flash controller is gone.

You need to find a company that specializes in recovering data from flash controllers. There is, for example, eProvided (https://www.eprovided.com/nand-flash-data-recovery/). You should give them a shot.

Hold on, as a owner of a computer hardware repair shop for more than 10 years I can give you one advice. If you don't know what you are doing, please don't attempt to repair it alone. I've seen "repaired" things that are beyond repair.
Keep in mind that whatever you do with the disk you have a high chance of destroying what was left on it.
Example every time you power up a SSD the firmware will will attempt to do a maintenance even if it's not connected to a PC, those are processes you cannot stop and they can make things even worse depends on the failure you have.

To me it seems like you have a controller chip corruption the way you explained the issued you got, this is the most common failure you get with those ssds. The memory chips should be all fine. I'm not a professional data recovery expert but I can bet on  that was the initial issue you had. I don't know the current situation after the "friends" repair attempts but if the hard drive didn't have any physical damage and just suddenly stopped working then controller chip corruption is the most common what can happen.

There's a possibility to replace the controller chip and the drive has quite high chance of getting back to normal but don't attempt to change it yourself.

If you have taken it to a professional company and they said that it cannot be repaired, the are not a professional data recovery company, or your drive is physically broken and total loss.

On the other side, the company cannot make a full recovery if the drive is encrypted and they don't have the decryption key, most likely every reputable company will require it. You might have a chance to make an agreement to get the raw data on an external drive and try to decrypt it yourself, but the company will not be able to verify if the data was properly extracted. You might end up with a bunch of 0s and 1s that have no meaning even after decrypting the data. You have to either risk the chance of getting your coins stolen, with a reputable companies the risk is lower, or just forget about the coins at all. Trying to fix it yourself won't do the job.

This is what I can tell you from my experience. Good luck with the recovery.

Hi!

Could you please do us a favor and upload a good/big pictures of the circuit board? front and back side, so we could see chip type, etc...

First interessting thing is, WHAT is (not) working?
Is it "just" the fuse as mentioned, is it a (small) controller or a connection brick? etc... are components "responding" like they should?

The NAND readout is one thing, because if readout is ok and you have the image of the NAND, you need to "know" how
to "puzzle" it together block management / etc... (which is done by controller) to get the data.
-> controller for NANDs are important to know which controller (on the front side) is used, there are controller which encypt the how data on NAND, etc..
(this encryption has nothing to do with any USER software/disk encytption!)

I don't know whether it could work to readout NAND chip 1:1, copy it to a new drive to the NAND chips 1:1 and try to start-up.

Shouldn't be there 2 x 8 NANDs, as I asked before?

@NotATether: broken NAND flash controllers, where do you see it?
NAND: it has 48pins, but normaly (I don't have the datsheet of this NAND) not all pins are used.

Bye

PS: this are jobs for professionals, who have done this before! as I said in my first post.

TheBeardedBaby

FNT

As final digging into this , most probably and the only good chance is that the controller is broken and can be replaced

The main issue is that it is a sandforce - based SSD controller which encrypt on low level language all the hardware


What are my chances, any advice how to get Controller replaced properly ?

The problem in PC3000 company machine , dont recognize sandforce firmware


NotATether and Guys , do you confirm any damaged Chip on the picture , because all process is useless if 1 of the chips is damaged, since the harddisk is encrypted. ! if 1 i loose 1 single byte i loose all the data.


Any recommendation? or replies
thanks

If the wallet file is protected with a strong password then there won't be anything they can steal at all short of running a password cracker on it which for them would be a borderline illegal activity if they've only been tasked to recover the wallet file. And if a professional company attempted to do this then they will be legally liable for theft of users' personal information and you can take them to court for that. Stealing bitcoins from a wallet.dat file is one of the more blatant forms of stealing personal information and any reasonable lawyer should be able to successfully argue the case to award you damages.

It reminds me of the time Best Buy was sued (and forced to pay damages) because some of their lot of hired technical support employees they called "Geek Squad" copied their client's personal files for themselves.

---

I'm not really sure. Like I said, I'm no hardware expert so we have to wait for someone more experienced to reply on this thread.

so we are talking about the "Sandforce SF-2281 controller" (or something like that) I guess.
use AES256 encyption

There are some companies out there which can recover it.

But, first IMHO you (anybody who is a pro!) has to check what's the fault. Is is a power supply chip for e.g. the controller, is it a simple fuse,
is it a destroyed voltage regulator, etc... is it the chip itself, and so on...

Normally, to check whether a chip is broken or not you have to -> measure it. (anything else - please don't get me wrong - is guessing)
(ok, not if completly destroyed / burned, etc... )

Bye,

agree but i already pass over all , the controller is damaged.

Can still companies recover it , even if the controller is damaged/ and sdd is encrypted?

I'll say one thing, you can't diagnose the problem only with a picture and this is electronics it's not a car mechanics where you can change your brakes using youtube videos... this is way more delicate hardware to work with. On a picture you can detect only the physical damage if any.

I don't know where you are located and I cannot suggest a local company, but if I was you I would check those guys > 300dollardatarecovery.com

I have never used their service, I don't have any relations with them, I'm just reading people's comments about their service online. I would love to read if anyone had any experience with them tho.

There is a risk but seems that you pay if they manage to recover any files otherwise you pay only the shipping fees.

Again, this is just an option, not THE solution, you have to decide for yourself what you want to do. 

Encryption is a totally different ballgame. Depending on the complexity of the password and how accurate your guesses are, the time taken to bruteforce one could possibly be over your lifetime. That isn't the point of data recovery services who will only recover your data and the rest would be dependent on you. SSDs are significantly more complex than HDD however, from experience, I've seen more successful HDD restoration by just replacing the controller than HDD. Approach your local data recovery company, they would know best with them having the disk physically.

Anyone who tells you to hand over the encrypted private keys + encryption key to a 70 BTC, 2.598.820$ USD wallet to some unknown company is a complete nut and they and their advice should be avoided at all costs or you will suffer the consequences.
Trust no one.
They do not need your encryption key, they can just backup the raw data into image files without them even knowing anything about the contents.

It is true that it is risky if you never done things like this before and there is a chance that you will make things worse and that is why you have to study and gain information first up to the point where you are confident enough to take on the task.

The white area on the NAND chip is most likely residue from a sticker.
Your first task is to trouble shoot the device first to find out why it isn't working anymore.

In any case you can think about reading the data from each of these chips with an external interface and writing it to a second device of the same type to make a one on one copy of the drive.
You do not need any encryption keys to do this.
This way you can make a copy without ever revealing the encryption key to anyone.
Make sure you keep an eye on that drive, by this i mean do not mail it anywhere, it's not that they can steal your coins because it's encrypted but if it get's lost then your not getting them back either.

There are way's to read out the memory chips without having to remove them.
Number the chips and read them out one after the other into a compatible application there are various applications available to do this.
Because you do not have to physically modify anything to the drive this is a preferred method because you will not have to remove anything or heat it or anything that is a recipe for disaster.
You also do not have to solder anything onto the chips if you have a helper then you can hold in place the needle adapter on the chip while your friend presses start in the application that will read out the chip.

https://i.ibb.co/7z5MjPt/wedge-1.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

After you pulled the data to separate and numbered image files you can then copy it to another drive by using the same method in reverse on the new drive.
No encryption key needed.

After that you connect the new drive and recover your coins.

You have to be careful when placing the adapter make sure you got the correct side otherwise you could damage the chip.
You can look up the pin out by downloading the datasheet.

ok, so if you already know that's 100% the controller? ok. (bad for this modell of SSD)
(100% sure not powerSoC, DC/DC, temperature sensor, transistor, diode, etc...)
So we're not talking about the NANDs, we are talking about Sandforce SF-2281 (like that) controller and we're talking about AES256
encryption for firmware and NANDs.
So a readout of NANDs is only interessting to make a copy / backup of NAND image, which is encrypted. (nothing to do with the TrueCypt)
The main problem there is that encryption, which is made from the Sandforce controller. So the 1:1 copy of NAND and
change the baord/etc... is NOT possible/working.

As I wrote, there are some rar! companies which complain about restoring data with this controller type, which was not possible in the past AND for sure
won't be done by "normal" recovering company. (I am not connected to any of these nor I have expi. with them!)
I also don't got any info about how they do this, as they state it takes time, it could be, that they trying to "break" ?? or "calculate"?? the key from the "old" controller? from NAND data?? I have no idea yet, how it could be done.

@Base16: yes that's true, mkae copy, etc.. BUT not the solution. NAND copy of course is "not that problem" (either to desolder or just with "cables")... (-> Sandforce)

The Sandforce SF-2281 controller, is soldered as VFBGA on the board, which I read maybe has a connection/solding problem, I know this kind of connection problems from other kind of this chips on other devices, BUT... not in this case for try-n-error ;-))

I'm also not happy about giving data away, and this is not and recommendation, but there currently there are three? kind of encryption:
- Controller -> AES256 to the the data in a "readable format" after that you have to use
(this is where external should be stopped - not giving any keys or passwaords.)
- TrueType (AES256, etc...) to decrypt the image/diskdata and then there is the
- wallet.dat encryption AES256-CBC+SHA512

Bye,

PS: "SSD stoped working" unfortunately, this is a know issue with that kind of SSDs moreover the controller from Sandforce
Edit/Update1: I read some sites/infos about the "Sandforce SF-2281" problem and noadays there are some tools around (from Sandforce) where you can update firmware, etc... so it seems to be possible to recover controller or change and make a update...
Update2: see firmware config of chips... just for info!!

NAND sample pinout:
 https://i.ibb.co/nsqvXTL/Gbit-NAND-flashmemory.png
Controller Sandforce:
https://i.ibb.co/9hyttTk/Sandforce-SF-2281.png
Firmwareconfig Sandforce: https://i.ibb.co/MgFWxHg/config-1.png
Firmwareconfig Sandforce: https://i.ibb.co/D9fqJPJ/config-2.png

WARNING, If you attempt the force replace the firmware (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSCr3UzyzhM), the info on the disk will be gone, together with the 70 bitcoins.
Here is the guide in English (https://sudonull.com/post/55443-Recovering-SSDs-on-a-SandForce-SF-2XXX-Controller) how to do it, here is the original Russian version (https://habr.com/en/post/368643/) and the video in the link of the warning message.

The guy perform the FW update also noted that after completing the process of recovery the data on the drive will be gone. Anyone speaking Russian can confirm it. He also said that if you need your data recovered you need to contact professionals.

DO NOT ATTEMPT THE ABOVE PROCEDURES, YOU'LL LOOS YOUR DATA!!

Another question. Any chance to have the seed, private key or the password for the wallet.dat saved on that disk, then you can be worried about sending the disk to someone?

You first have to measure the voltage on the power pin of the controller chip to see if it is getting it's voltage.
If not then it is a supply issue and those are usually easy to solve.

If it does, then you have to check if the oscillator is running.
Sometimes there is a voltage on the power pin but the oscillator will not start and the chip remains frozen.

If there is a voltage and the oscillator is running then you can measure IO with a logic analyzer.

With these 3 steps you can try to isolate the problem by doing logic analysis.

As I wrote this is not a recommendation to do it so, nor a DIY instruction, etc...!
This is just a proof of, is it possible for someone? It could...

If you want to try it by your own, I would recommend to get some of the SSD of exactly same model/type
and try it with them, so it doesn't matter. Also get the right! tools for doing this (osci, logic analyser, SMD stuff, etc.. - not that expensive)

There is no pressure to do anything with the original SDD!?! the information is stored there for years, if it's there (wallet.dat) where is the problem?

In any case, I'd try to get a copy/backup of the NANDs, because there are the data on.
(this should be only done by someone how is 100% in knowledge what he's doing!)

If you have a copy you could also try to make a 1:1 copy, where I wrote not possibel because of encryption, but the software (firmeware updater) etc...
maybe it's possible with the orginal tool from Sandforce? (try it only on demo SSD or copied SSD, not orignal!!)

Bye,

I realized it is hard if you do not have the right tools and equipment.

I have had several cases where the circuit board appeared dead because of an malfunctioning oscillator.
The oscillator provides the clock signal to the controller chip.
It's usually located very close to the chip itself.

https://i.ibb.co/fqKsdkV/CREATOR-gd-jpeg-v1-0-using-IJG-JPEG-v62-quality-90.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

Now believe it or not, these are mechanical devices.
They have a small crystal inside that physically vibrates at a very high frequency.

I have had cases where the oscillator would not start up and as a result the entire device appeared dead.

Now one of the first routines that i try when trouble shooting a device is to slowly tap and press on areas and components of the circuit board to see if there is any response and to look for faulty connections.
I have had several occasions where the device would spring back into life after i gave a small physical tap on the oscillator package.
The crystal appeared to be stuck and by giving is a small physical shock it started oscillating again.

So i knew then that the oscillator was the problem and after replacing the oscillator package the device worked as intended again.

But i do not think that this is the case with your device, it is just something you could try to see if it works without tools and equipment.
You could also put the drive in a watertight bag, the ones they use for phones and tablets, and put it in a cooler to cool it down, some devices start operating again if they are cool.

Anyway i have looked up the datasheet on this controller http://www.wintecind.com/oem/datasheets/wintecssd-wxssxxxg1ta-d41x_v1_08.pdf (http://www.wintecind.com/oem/datasheets/wintecssd-wxssxxxg1ta-d41x_v1_08.pdf)
And it appears that there are indeed issues with it because many people report that their drive is stuck in BSY or BUSY mode and will not get detected by BIOS.
This is essentially the same as the 'click of death' in mechanical drives where a drive would power up and just start clicking endlessly without any read write activity possible.
The drive would attempt to move data away from a damaged sector to another one like a maintenance cycle but go into an endless loop never giving back the RDY or READY and open IO to the ATA or SATA interface.
Of course in the case of SSD you will not hear anything because there is no moving head.

There is a pretty good chance that your drive is not broken but just stuck in an endless loop this is why you have to start checking from the input power up to the clock and then on to the chip itself to find the area that is preventing your drive from becoming live to the SATA interface on the motherboard of the computer.
Because once can exclude several issues that way and at some point you will find the problem and once you know the problem, you can apply the appropriate solution.

@private73123, is it possible to send two good pictures of the board, because that we know the chipsets and we have not to guess... ;-)

@Base16: "freezer trick" is a good idea!

Anyway, beside the oscillator, (a change is "quite simple"), also the (BGA) sandforce chip could have a bad connection....
also stated here: https://forum.acelaboratory.com/viewtopic.php?p=37894#p37894 (https://forum.acelaboratory.com/viewtopic.php?p=37894#p37894) (you might know)

About the SF firmware: read the manuals of the SandForce software "Genesis Utilities" which was written for OEMs / System Designers & SSD Manufacturers.
There you see how it works and things like "put the drive in ROM mode without using the breakout board", etc...

Backside of SF controller:
https://i.ibb.co/jv7dL9n/SFchip-2281.png

FNT
BASE16
TheBeardedBaby


controller image  https://pasteboard.co/JKD72Gf.jpg
detect information : https://pasteboard.co/JKD87OI.jpg
detect information ++ : https://pasteboard.co/JKD8lsA.jpg

-Any update to firmware is possible at this case? What i can conclude from the detection above ON THE PC.??

I just now read that the drive is visible in the system. I thought you said it's not detected at all.
I see someone tried to do rework of some components on the left side of the chip, not so nice work done there tho...
We need to know a few things.

Are there any components changed?
Was the drive visible in the system before those "repairs"?
Have you tried mounting the device directly, not trough the USB but directly to the mother board with SATA cable?

Get a proper picture of both sided of the drive. I did not expect so much physical "repairs" done.

if the drive is detected then it would be possible to update the firmware, but again a big WARNING! There is a high chance that the firmware update could delete the information on the drive.

If you don't have the password/seed/pr.keys saved on the drive and you have a strong wallet password, I again suggest that data should be recovered by someone who knows what he is doing.

I will try the update of firmware on different similar harddisk to make sure data doesn't deleted . i am working carefully do not worry...

1- There are no component change as far as i know , well yes some people in the past try to fuck it it , the only thing i hope they did not fuck the chips. which i doubt from the images i see.
2- The harddisk is showing as you see.( not quite sure if it was showing before physically repair attempt before.
3- tried SSD tool from sandforce/Kingstone, for the update of firmware , the device is not showing inside it , even i tried another harddisk same module which is encrypted it show even before decrypting it . -> is there anyway else to try update firmware ?


photos: for both sides
https://pasteboard.co/JKDzT8R.jpg
https://pasteboard.co/JKDA75K.jpg

This is why you should always backup the hard drive where you plan to hold crypto coins. I always back up and place the backup to multiple external drives and so on. You should start doing this too once you recover your funds.

Now I am not sure if you can do much about this though. I would buy new SSDs which are the same exact model as yours and try some of the options given on these. Perhaps there is a way to recover if you use parts of new SSD or vice versa, but I am not an expert obviously just following some logic.

I wish you best of luck man. It would be a shame to lose that amount of money.

Hi

Thanks for pics and info! Ok, changes things, as you can read "something"!

Before you thinking about the firmware update, etc.. think about coping/backup the NANDs?

Have you tried the "freezer trick"? (SSD in a plastic bag so no humidity gets to the device!! and put it in the frezzer)
Like Base16 wrote? Read this: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ssd-troubleshooting/#comment-3130139848 (https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ssd-troubleshooting/#comment-3130139848)

Demoing first, with an old/demo SSD.

Bye

If you have access to the disk and it's shown in the system you can try to recover some data using programs like EaseUS (https://www.easeus.com/storage-media-recovery/recover-data-from-crashed-ssd.html#:~:text=Connect%20an%20empty%20external%20hard,find%20all%20your%20lost%20files.&text=You%20can%20preview%20all%20recoverable,button%20to%20restore%20your%20files.)

You need to connect the SSD to a PC as a second drive. If you need instructions, we can guide you trough.

I've been using this software for many years as we have a lifetime license but I never needed to recover files from SSDs so I don't know how good this will perform but it's worth trying before you take more serious actions.

A security tip for newbies. If someone tries to reach you on private messages, be very careful, never give access you your machine trough team viewer or similar software, keep conversations as public as possible so if there's a scammer it well be easily revealed.
Never give private keys, wallet files, seeds to anyone, don't let them see it.
70 Bitcoins is quite a serious amount of money and sure there will be people trying to steal it..

I often send pms to newbies to warn them about the possible scammer attempts, here I decided to post it so everyone ca see.

I've been reading this thread for a few days but don't have contributed because there are already good advices
I just realized though that an youtuber I follow may help for this kind of recovery
I won't post here because I don't want the guy to be spammed with dozens of requests from people who just send mails to any people mentioned in a 'wallet help' thread (yes this happened before)
Anyway I sent it to private73123 and if future people sees this message and needs HARDWARE help, you can PM me
FWIW I don't know the guy at all, he just happens to have tons of video of him working at his shop so that's your job to search, trust and choose what you do with this guy

I do not recommend you to update the firmware because it will overwrite the internal encryption key and you will loose all chance on a successful outcome.

Please read the datasheet.


Your words keep changing, first the drive is dead and then its showing up again.
This does not help in terms of trouble shooting.
You are wasting our time.

We can see that the drive is connected to a USB bus.
This does not help because you can not pull S.M.A.R.T reports over USB bus you have to connect the drive directly to a SATA interface and boot up the machine with a live dvd like Knoppix and then do further advanced analysis with Gnome Disks Smart Utility.

From this new information i can see that most likely your partition table has become corrupted.
This is not a problem because there are more then one copies of the partition table on the disk, you only have to restore it.
After that the disk will be back to normal and you can access the data again.
You can attempt a data recovery in Gparted but make sure to read the documentation first because you do not want to make things worse.

Windows is not a good candidate when it comes to disk utilities.
It will mount your drive in read write and add folders and files (and even delete) without notice for the recycler and indexing, you don't want to write on that disk so you have to mount it in read only on Linux to ensure that your data is conserved and protected.

Let's start from scratch again. Seems like the situation with the SSD it's different than described in the OP so I suggest start from scratch.

What we know until now is the following.

- The drive is discoverable, therefore the controller theory is out of the picture.
- The drive is connected trough the USB interface.
- There were physically repairs conducted, with unknown results.

If the OP wants to get those 70 Bitcoins out of this disk needs to answer a few questions, so please take your time to read and answer. I'll try to make simple and easy questions if OP's not an native English speaker.

1. Do you have a PC where you can connect the SSD directly to the mother board?
2. Do you know how to connect the SSD to the Motherboard?
3. Do you have experience with writing commands in the terminal?
4. Do you use any translating software to read/post comments, English level?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Please answer those simple questions above so we can make a proper plan how to troubleshoot the issue.
If you have language problems, use google translate go answer my questions.

There's a high chance to recover the information from the disk.

-----
Thanks @LoyceV for the typo thing :)

Just a thought: if you're going to DIY a drive holding 70 BTC, start by buying a few identical drives to practice on! You don't want to make your current drive damage worse.

I start thinking now that maybe the drive itself has no problem but the problem is actually a corrupted TrueCrypt container which can lead to the same problems. TrueCrypt and SSD is not the best combination seems like it.

How about make a plan to start troubleshooting first the eventual software issues and the top priority is to analyze the error not try to fix it because it could lead to data loss, since it will be impossible to replicate the same issue on different hard drive.

I don't know if this would help but maybe raw clone the disk with something like Norton Ghost or https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/ if it gets trough. I never played with encrypted SSD, mechanical drives are much easier to recover.

1st. try to replicate the drive.
2dn. Analyze the encrypted partition.
3rd. If it's the partition then try to recover the MBR.

From experience I can say that there's much higher chance to get thinks working on an older machine, like 2011 model MB with SATAIII (3.0) controller, or from 2007 and before with SATAII. They work much more stable then the newest SATA releases. But this is just my personal experience.

would you share your telegram in private so we can easier communication. thanks.


Regarding harddisk , i have read alot on SSD sandbase controller which make problems in 2014-2016 , thousands of cases have same problem , i do not know if anyone found a solution.

You can reach me out on Discord, here's the official bitcointalk.org discord server, you can find me there :)  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5247383.msg54403124#msg54403124

hi,

as pointed out there are different soultions for this topic, of course some are more challenging than other...
btw, have you tried the "freezer trick"?

bye

70 BTC is a lot of money - enough to make even any professional person/firm think about stealing/replacing it.

My advice is to hire a legal firm and they will do their best to recover the coin or they don't get paid.

Good link about recovering data from SSD's (https://7datarecovery.com/blog/ssd-data-recovery/)
Link to problems that HP drives had after hitting 32,768 hrs of run time (https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-automation/article/21808903/hp-ssds-that-stop-after-32768-hours)
IMHO the best and most trusted data recovery firm (https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery) (NASA used them to recover almost all data on the black box drives from the space shuttles that were destroyed) They have been in business for decades and have several labs around the globe you can send the drive to.

Hello
 
If you have Linux OS, (ubuntu or ...) reboot the computer and go to GRUB bootloader and check disk for troubleshooting.

or Scan hard drive for Bad Sectors or Bad Blocks and inform OS not to use bad blocks for storing data.

The disk controller is physically damaged and the disk itself has been removed from its enclosure and so he can't even plug it in and expect it to work let alone run a file system scanner on it. And a bad filesystem rarely causes lost data.

Also, GRUB doesn't even have a built-in filesystem checker - it's a program called fsck or e2fsck or something like that - which itself is also useless because the filesystem is encrypted with TrueCrypt! (And doesn't work if the filesystem is not ext2/3/4 anyway.)

Interesting what happen with that case. The sad thing is that when people have issues and post here, then find another solution or just give up they never say what actually happens with the case. It would be nice to know if the hard drive was able to connect at the end.

Another tip of the guy if he is still reading still have issues.
Some of the sata2usb controllers which are used in the external drives often get "crazy" too, it's possible to get it working by using another sata to usb controller or try it a few times on the old one, connect/disconnect.

I start to wonder if the drive was really the problem at all, it could be the sata2upb since it was encrypted with truecrypt nobody can really see/recover anything if they don't have the key and consider the drive as broken.
Just some random thoughts here..

I think I can help you solve this problem, because I once had an SSD like you, a similar problem, and finally it was successfully solved. Of course you can give me a certain reward

The guy is offline for more than 8 days now, I hope he managed to recover that small fortune he had and didn't got scammed on the way.
It would be nice if the OP drops only a note if they manage to recover the drive and what was the solution when that happens.

not yet my friend , was little busy taking a break ,
already tried the freeze trick didnt work

ssd showing both on windows and linux 24 kb only
for windows showing unkown disk in disk mangment and sandforce 2000x

 no solution remain in my hand until now, also am a man of honor if this work all who pariticpiate will get rewards :) make sure i will post back thanks.


luxhen07 am happy to give reward if your idea work ))

So you managed to bring power to your hardware and it is even detected in system?

IIRC, hard drives showing unknown disk means all those partitions in the disk now moved to unallocated space so it is possible to recover all the data in it with recovery softwares for sure. But I never done it personally so wait for others opinion to find what are the further steps need to be taken to get those funds back, hopefully. :)

OP if you managed to get Windows to "recognize" the drive in the Disk Management Settings (to make sure just click on START and then look for Disk Management) then you probably are one step closer to retrieve whatever files were on it!
There are a tons of programs that claim that they can recover the assets in such cases, but I would advise you to use R-Studio (open source) : Data Recovery from an External Disk with a Damaged File System  (https://www.r-studio.com/external-disk-recovery.html)

Let us know if your story has a happy ending mate ;)

If you want to recover information, I will tell you the developer of the program for testing hard drives. They have a website and experience. I don't advertise here, pm or email me for the info.

If it's visible in the system, have you tried any partition manager to see what partitions there might be?
I found a 250gb kingston SSD in one of my PCs (ill post pictures later) and when I find more time I'll give it a try with the true crypt. Never used it before so I cannot give suggestions until I have some interaction with it.

Very important question, do you connect the drive directly to the motherboard or you still use sata2usb convert from the external drive?

If you connect it to the MB you can download hirens boot CD (or DVD version) to check the disk status. If you wish to test it let me know i can guide you through the process.

Edit: If you need to get help, please take your time and explain what you have already did to the drive to test it. I ask every customer to explain to me in details what actually happen in order to proved the most efficient help.
Just make a list with short description like,: checked the boot manager, no partitions found. Tested on different SATA2USB controllers, all show the same result, etc.
It's easy, makes thinks clear, and keep the work tidy and don't waste time to repeat already conducted tests.

Some people here do not understand , it is shown as Unknown disk . on Linux after connecting direct to motherboard showing 34 kb .

Who want to really Help , share in private your  Telegram

Am offering 5 BTC as reward who help me fix this harddisk .

Thanks

Of course we don't understand because we need more information. If you see the Unknow Disk in the Device Manager, it's one thing. If you see the Unknown disk in THe BIOS it's another thing.

What settings you have in the BIOS for tha SATA controller ? Which mode it is  AHCI or IDE this is also important, If you don't see it, change the mode to IDE.

It's a ton of other things that can affect the HDD detection. IT's important to see the POST status also the SMART info of the drive. What partitions has the unknow drive, have you checked?

Sent you my Telegram in a PM.

I asked this so many times but i never got an answer.

The controller itself is visible but not the NAND.
This usually happens when one of the chips get bricked or the device does not pass one of the power on tests it runs when first turned on.
I had hoped it was a faulty temperature sensor that will send a false reading to the controller which will then go into emergency mode because it thinks that the hardware is overheated.
This is a common issue with these type of devices, and these issues will have the exact same outcome: controller visible but no IO possible.
I am still convinced that this is most likely the issue so my last advice was to check the storage hardware chip by chip to see if/which one went rogue but of course to do that will take more tools and equipment so that's where we came to a stop.
I am also still convinced that the data needed to recover the coins could still be there on the device, but i do not think that it is going to be easy to get access to it, simply because we tried all the easy things and unfortunately those appeared not to work.

I've wokred with people that really want help but do nothing to actually get a proper help.

If you are talking about a 3.5M$ you have to provide a proper information so we can somehow remotly find a solution.

I have no crystal ball to tell from a probably few thousends kilometers what's wrong with frankenstein's type of a harddisk, repaired by god knows who. This is not the way.

There should be a simple system. You collect and provide all the possible data(info) so you can apply the most efficent solution,  otherwise you are just gambling with 70 bitcoins... and the odds are against you.

Sorry OP but I really get upset when people do not understand the situation they put the others that are trying to help. You need to at least answer the question we put here, if you cannot answer, please ask so we can explain in details what you need to do in order to answer them. That's all.


So you dug deeply into solving possible hardware problems.
First I would check the 3.3V  and 1V that comes from the power regulator to the controller. There's also a 3.3V going from the regulatior to the NANDs, only to exclude the physical damage from the so called "repairs". The drive could be OK before the repair, you never know what they did, so basically check everything.