Resurrecting The Dead SSD

08 Aug 2014

I had my solid state drive for only a few months before it decided to die on me. Notoriously unreliable these things were, as I found, and I lost my entire Windows installation. And in my drawer my SSD stayed, like a m3ssiah in his tomb or whatever.

receipt for this failed SSD is nowhere to be found; don't suppose they'd accept the return without it.. #lifefail

— ıllıllı j¤§ȟɥå βÿȑď (@phocks) November 8, 2011

A few years this drive remained undetectable by any BIOS. I was sure to check every so often for vital signs, though always nothing.

And then one day, a revelation! An ancient technique rumoured to have worked in the revival of bricked solid state drives long ago. And this is the simple resurrection ritual I performed:

1. Attach SSD normally, switch on computer, see that it isn’t recognised, switch off.
2. Disconnect the serial ATA data connector and run the computer and drive with only the power cable connected for a full 20 minutes.
3. Plug the serial ATA data cable into the SSD, with the computer still on.
4. Reboot system, and see the drive show up like magic!

holy wow, now resurrected my long-dead solid state drive, 20 mins power then data cable in and reboot, getting good at this, hallelujah!

— ıllıllı j¤§ȟɥå βÿȑď (@phocks) July 23, 2014

Now I’m not sure how or why this method worked at all, so I’m just going to assume it is a miracle of computing. Perhaps it has something to do with warming up the drive circuits or something.

Anyway, best of luck young chosen ones. I hope this works for you!