DriveSavers uses the same PC-3000 and DeepSpar equipment we use. They also have a massive marketing budget, thousands of commission-based referral partners, and a sales team to feed. You pay for all of that. At Rossmann Group, you pay for data recovery.
Our Austin lab operates on a transparency-first model. We use industry-standard recovery tools, including PC-3000 and DeepSpar, combined with strict environmental controls to make sure your hard drive is handled safely and properly. This approach allows us to serve clients nationwide with consistent technical standards.
Serving clients nationwide via mail-in service since 2008. Our lead engineer holds PC-3000 and HEX Akademia certifications for hard drive firmware repair and mechanical recovery.
Our "No Data, No Charge" policy means we assume the risk of the recovery attempt, not the client.
LR
Technical Oversight
Louis Rossmann
Louis Rossmann's well trained staff review our lab protocols to ensure technical accuracy and honest service. Since 2008, his focus has been on clear technical communication and accurate diagnostics rather than sales-driven explanations.
We believe in proving standards rather than just stating them. We use TSI P-Trak instrumentation to verify that clean-air benchmarks are met before any drive is opened.
“This is literally the first review I've ever written, and these guys absolutely deserve it. I had a hard drive fail after it was connected to a bad power supply and fried itself. I basically lost 6+ months of work and was devastated. I sent the drive Rossmann Repair and they managed to recover all of the data I lost, and sent it to me on a new 1tb external drive.
Also important to note: when I sent the drive in the company was in the process of moving to a new store location.”
“Five weeks ago, my 10 year old daughter's 5th gen iPad stopped charging. My husband and I suspected a loose connection, but when we took it to Apple, they ran some test and concluded the logic board died. Since the iPad was set up under me when she got it (at the age of 6), I had disconnected her from *my* iCloud. Apple basically couldn't sell me a new iPad because we had no data backup.”
“Great service! Walked in last minute after calling in for an estimated price on an ipad and macbookair. Ofcourse i understand things can change once my devices are actually looked at but i liked the fact i could get a quote. This made me actually want to come in. Once at the shop i was greeted and attended to quickly.”
“My iPhone 7 was not keeping a battery charge. I contacted Rossmann Repair Group via their website contact form and they gave me a free estimate of what replacing the battery would cost, and that it would be a same day turnaround.”
DriveSavers is a marketing machine. They spend millions on Google Ads, aggressive SEO, and most importantly, referral commissions. When your local IT guy refers you to DriveSavers, he often gets a check. Who pays for that check? You do. Read our full analysis with evidence.
They also maintain massive facilities with overhead that has nothing to do with recovering your specific drive. Walking into an ISO 14644-1 Class 5 cleanroom in a full spacesuit looks cool for a photo op, but your hard drive only needs clean air on the square foot of bench where it is opened.
We cut the theater and the commissions. We keep the best engineers and the best tools like PC-3000. The result is the same data for a third of the price.
Real Customer Story
“I had a hard drive fail after it was connected to a bad power supply and fried itself. I basically lost 6+ months of work and was devastated. I sent the drive Rossmann Repair and they managed to recover all of the data I lost, and sent it to me on a new 1tb external drive. I would highly suggest going through Rossmann Repair if you need an affordable alternative to something like Drive Savers.”
M
Matt Nemecek
Google Review, 2020
SOC 2 Type II: Data Security Audit, Not Recovery Certification
DriveSavers data recovery marketing features their annual SOC 2 Type II audit as a primary trust signal. SOC 2 is an auditing standard maintained by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA). It evaluates whether a company's data handling controls meet five trust criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. The audit confirms that DriveSavers locks its server room, encrypts data at rest, and restricts employee access to customer files.
SOC 2 does not test whether an engineer can rebuild a Seagate Rosewood translator module, swap heads on a helium-sealed Ultrastar, or load a Phison firmware loader through PC-3000 SSD. It measures data privacy controls, not mechanical or firmware-level recovery skill. Corporate IT departments shipping regulated data often request SOC 2 reports to satisfy their internal compliance checklists. Individual consumers shipping a failed desktop drive do not need that audit trail. The audit overhead is built into every DriveSavers quote, regardless of whether the customer requires compliance-grade chain of custody.
See the Work for Yourself
DriveSavers calls their methods “proprietary.” We film ours and put them on YouTube. Here is Louis Rossmann discussing DriveSavers pricing practices and what a $3,000+ quote actually buys you.
What You Actually Pay: Line by Line
Rossmann Group publishes fixed pricing tiers based on the fault, not the perceived value of your data. A simple data copy from a functional drive costs $100. File system corruption recovery starts at $250. Firmware repair using PC-3000 runs $600–$900. Head swap cases, where the read/write heads are physically replaced inside a clean bench, cost $1,200–$1,500. The most complex cases involving platter surface damage top out at $2,000.
DriveSavers typically quotes $2,500 to $4,000 for the same categories of work, with some cases exceeding $7,000. The equipment is identical: both labs use PC-3000 from ACE Lab and DeepSpar imaging tools. The difference is overhead.
DriveSavers pays for national advertising, referral commissions to thousands of IT partners, and a sales team that calls you back within minutes. Those costs get passed to every customer as inflated quotes. We skip the marketing infrastructure and charge for the recovery itself. For a side-by-side comparison across every failure type, see our data recovery cost guide.
Our Published HDD Pricing Tiers
Simple Copy
Low complexity
Your drive works, you just need the data moved off it
$100
3-5 business days
Functional drive; data transfer to new media
Rush available: +$100
File System Recovery
Low complexity
Your drive isn't recognized by your computer, but it's not making unusual sounds
From $250
2-4 weeks
File system corruption. Accessible with professional recovery software but not by the OS
Starting price; final depends on complexity
Firmware Repair
Medium complexity
Your drive is completely inaccessible. It may be detected but shows the wrong size or won't respond
Your drive was dropped, has visible damage, or a head crash scraped the platters
$2,000
4-8 weeks
Platter scoring or contamination. Requires platter cleaning and head swap
50% deposit required. Donor parts are consumed in the repair. Most difficult recovery type.
50% deposit required
Hardware Repair vs. Software Locks
Our "no data, no fee" policy applies to hardware recovery. We do not bill for unsuccessful physical repairs. If we replace a hard drive read/write head assembly or repair a liquid-damaged logic board to a bootable state, the hardware repair is complete and standard rates apply. If data remains inaccessible due to user-configured software locks, a forgotten passcode, or a remote wipe command, the physical repair is still billable. We cannot bypass user encryption or activation locks.
No data, no fee. Free evaluation and firm quote before any paid work. Full guarantee details. Head swap and surface damage require a 50% deposit because donor parts are consumed in the attempt.
Rush fee: +$100 rush fee to move to the front of the queue.
Donor drives: Donor drives are matching drives used for parts. Typical donor cost: $50–$150 for common drives, $200–$400 for rare or high-capacity models. We source the cheapest compatible donor available.
Target drive: The destination drive we copy recovered data onto. You can supply your own or we provide one at cost plus a small markup. For larger capacities (8TB, 10TB, 16TB and above), target drives cost $400+ extra. All prices are plus applicable tax.
Geek Squad Data Recovery: Retail Counter vs. Real Lab
Best Buy's Geek Squad performs Level 1 software-only recoveries in-store: accidental deletion, formatting errors, and partition table corruption. These Level 1 cases use commercial recovery software at a retail counter for around $200. Geek Squad charges a $49.99 upfront diagnostic fee before any work begins. We charge no diagnostic fee and never bill unless data is recovered.
For mechanical failures, head crashes, or firmware corruption (Level 2 and Level 3 cases), the drive leaves the store. Geek Squad ships these drives to an outsourced facility for processing. The customer loses direct communication with the engineer working on the drive and waits weeks for results. At Rossmann Group, every case from a $100 data copy to a $1,200–$1,500 head swap is performed in-house at our Austin lab using PC-3000 Data Extractor. You talk to the person who opens the drive. For a full breakdown, see our Geek Squad alternative comparison.
Ontrack Data Recovery: Quote-Only Pricing vs. Published Tiers
Ontrack operates legitimate recovery labs with real engineering capability. The issue is transparency. Ontrack does not publish pricing on their website; customers must submit to a consultation and quote process before learning what the recovery will cost. Crowdsourced pricing data from independent forums places their mechanical HDD recovery between $800 and $3,000+, depending on severity and turnaround.
Ontrack also sells DIY software called “Ontrack EasyRecovery,” which is a rebranded version of Stellar Data Recovery. That software handles logical corruption on functional drives. It cannot address firmware corruption, head failure, or any fault requiring PC-3000 terminal access. Our published five-tier pricing $100–$2,000 is visible before you contact us. For a detailed analysis, see our Ontrack alternative comparison.
SSD Recovery: Why the “Big Lab” Model Overcharges You
Hard drives require a dust-controlled environment when the platters are exposed. SSDs do not. The NAND chips are sealed; recovery happens with a chip reader, firmware tooling, and a soldering iron. Billing you for an ISO 14644-1 Class 5 cleanroom on an SSD case is billing theater.
Factor
Rossmann Group
Legacy Labs
SSD Pricing
Published tiers ($200–$1,500)
“Call for Quote” ($700–$3,000+)
SSD Environment
Laminar flow bench (correct for sealed chips)
“ISO 14644-1 Class 5 Cleanroom” (marketing for SSDs)
Tools Disclosed
PC-3000 Portable III, chip-off, microsoldering
“Proprietary” (usually the same PC-3000)
Evaluation
Free. No data, no fee.
Frequent upfront non-refundable fees
Our Published SSD Pricing Tiers
Simple Copy
Low complexity
Your drive works, you just need the data moved off it
$200
3-5 business days
Functional drive; data transfer to new media
Rush available: +$100
File System Recovery
Low complexity
Your drive isn't showing up, but it's not physically damaged
From $250
2-4 weeks
File system corruption. Visible to recovery software but not to OS
Starting price; final depends on complexity
Circuit Board Repair
Medium complexity
Your drive won't power on or has shorted components
$450–$600
3-6 weeks
PCB issues: failed voltage regulators, dead PMICs, shorted capacitors
May require a donor drive (additional cost)
Firmware Recovery
Medium complexityMost Common
Your drive is detected but shows the wrong name, wrong size, or no data
$600–$900
3-6 weeks
Firmware corruption: ROM, modules, or system files corrupted
Price depends on extent of bad areas in NAND
PCB / NAND Swap
High complexity
Your drive's circuit board is severely damaged and requires NAND chip transplant to a donor PCB
Our "no data, no fee" policy applies to hardware recovery. We do not bill for unsuccessful physical repairs. If we replace a hard drive read/write head assembly or repair a liquid-damaged logic board to a bootable state, the hardware repair is complete and standard rates apply. If data remains inaccessible due to user-configured software locks, a forgotten passcode, or a remote wipe command, the physical repair is still billable. We cannot bypass user encryption or activation locks.
No data, no fee. Free evaluation and firm quote before any paid work. Full guarantee details. NAND swap requires a 50% deposit because donor parts are consumed in the attempt.
Rush fee: +$100 rush fee to move to the front of the queue.
Donor drives: A donor drive is a matching SSD used for its circuit board. Typical donor cost: $40–$100 for common models, $150–$300 for discontinued or rare controllers.
Target drive: The destination drive we copy recovered data onto. You can supply your own or we provide one at cost plus a small markup. All prices are plus applicable tax.
When an SSD suddenly reports 0 bytes of capacity or identifies itself as “SATAfirm S11” in the BIOS, the controller firmware has entered a panic state. This failure is common on drives using Phison PS3111-S11 controllers (found in Kingston A400, Patriot Burst, and dozens of other consumer SATA SSDs). The NAND flash still holds the data, but the firmware translation layer that maps logical sectors to physical NAND pages has corrupted.
Recovering this data requires connecting the drive to a PC-3000 SSD module and loading a vendor-specific firmware loader for the Phison controller into RAM. The loader skips the corrupted translation tables and allows direct access to the NAND contents through the controller. No part of this procedure involves opening the drive, exposing platters, or controlling airborne particles. The NAND chips are sealed BGA packages soldered to the PCB.
Paying for an ISO 14644-1 Class 5 cleanroom on this type of case is paying for a resource the job does not use. A cleanroom protects spinning platters from dust contamination during head replacement. SSDs have no platters and no heads. The recovery happens through firmware tooling and chip-level access, not through environmental controls. Any lab that bills cleanroom overhead for an SSD firmware panic is billing theater.
Handling Modern High-Capacity HDDs
Modern consumer hard drives above 2 TB are not the same devices they were a decade ago. Two architectural shifts have changed how recovery labs handle them, and most marketing-driven labs do not discuss either one.
Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) overlaps write tracks like roof shingles to increase platter density. The trade-off is a dynamic translator that maps logical blocks to physical zones. When an SMR drive fails mid-write, the translator frequently corrupts. A corrupted translator means the firmware cannot locate user data on the platters, even if the media is physically intact. Recovering an SMR drive requires patching the translator module in RAM through PC-3000, then imaging the drive zone-by-zone before the patched state is lost. A simple PCB swap will fail without transferring ROM and adaptive parameters from the original board.
Helium-sealed drives (8 TB and above from WD, Seagate, and Toshiba) use helium instead of air to reduce aerodynamic drag on the read/write heads. If the seal is broken and the drive is powered on in a standard atmosphere, the higher gas density destabilizes head flight and causes immediate platter contact. Recovery labs can open helium drives on a laminar flow bench, but the work is time-sensitive: heads must be replaced and imaging started before helium fully dissipates. Head replacement on helium drives requires donor drives from the same sealed production line. DriveSavers markets generic “cleanroom” capability without distinguishing between conventional and helium-sealed drives. The difference matters when selecting a lab.
Hardware Imaging vs. Software Scans on Failing Drives
A drive with degraded read/write heads (the most common failure on Seagate Rosewood and WD Ultrastar families) will hang consumer recovery software on CRC errors within the first few passes. Each retry forces the weakened heads back across the same damaged sectors, scoring the platter surface and converting a recoverable case into a permanent loss.
Professional hardware data extraction handles this differently. PC-3000 Data Extractor disables read look-ahead and sets per-sector read timeouts (typically 200 to 500 ms, tuned to the specific head degradation level). When a sector times out, the imager skips it and moves to the next readable zone instead of hammering the same bad area. After the first pass captures every readable sector, subsequent passes with relaxed timeouts return to the skipped zones for maximum yield.
Both DriveSavers and Rossmann Group use this same PC-3000 Data Extractor workflow. The imaging methodology is identical. The difference is that DriveSavers wraps this procedure in $3,000+ quotes backed by referral commissions and cleanroom facility overhead, while our published pricing for a head swap case runs $1,200–$1,500. The heads, the imager, and the extraction parameters are the same.
iPhone and Apple Silicon: Board Repair, Not Cleanrooms
iPhones and MacBooks with T2 or M-series chips use hardware-bound encryption. The NAND flash is encrypted with a key stored in the Secure Enclave, which is fused to the logic board. You cannot desolder the NAND and read it on a chip reader. The data is cryptographically inaccessible without the original SoC.
Recovery from these devices requires repairing the logic board itself: fixing damaged power rails, replacing failed capacitors, or reballing the SoC so the device boots and decrypts its own storage. This is microsoldering, not cleanroom work. There are no platters to contaminate and no heads to replace.
DriveSavers has quoted $3,000 to $4,000 for iPhone recoveries that required board-level repair. Independent labs with microsoldering capability perform this same work at a fraction of the cost. The equipment is a microscope, a hot air station, and a DC power supply; not an ISO 14644-1 Class 5 room.
Legacy Percentage Billing on Cryptographic Devices
Large labs built their pricing models in the 1990s for mechanical hard drives, where technicians often recovered partial data and billed based on the percentage extracted. This model is incompatible with modern iPhone & Apple Silicon recovery. Hardware-bound encryption tied to the Secure Enclave means recovery is binary: if the board boots, the volume decrypts, and the recoverable data percentage is 100%. There is no partial outcome.
Because legacy billing models charge maximum rates for 100% yields, any successful iPhone recovery automatically triggers the top of the quote range. Independent labs that bill based on the microsoldering labor required to repair the power rails charge for the actual work performed, not an outdated percentage metric.
RAID and NAS Recovery
A failed RAID array or NAS device should never be “rebuilt” as a recovery method. Forcing a RAID rebuild on a degraded array overwrites parity data and can permanently destroy the logical structure. This is one of the most common mistakes IT administrators make under pressure.
Proper RAID recovery involves imaging each member drive individually using DeepSpar or PC-3000 hardware imagers, then virtually reconstructing the array geometry in a read-only software environment. This preserves the original drives completely while the technician maps stripe order, block size, rotation direction, and parity distribution.
DriveSavers markets enterprise storage recovery with NetApp and SAN partnerships. The actual recovery technique is the same regardless of who performs it: image the member disks, reconstruct the virtual array, extract the file system. The difference is whether you pay $5,000 to $15,000 for that work or $2,000 to $4,000.
Shipping Your Drive: DriveSavers vs. Rossmann
Both Drive Savers and Rossmann Group accept nationwide mail-in recovery from all 50 states. The process diverges after the package arrives.
At DriveSavers, a sales representative contacts you with a quote range (typically $1,500 to $4,000+ for hard drive recovery). You approve the range before the technician opens the drive. The technician's identity and direct contact information are not shared with the customer. Communication routes through the account manager.
At Rossmann Group, the technician who opens your drive is the person who emails you. There is no sales layer between the engineer and the customer. Our published five-tier pricing means you see the cost range before you ship. If the drive arrives and the fault matches Tier 1 (simple data copy, $100), you pay Tier 1. If it requires a Tier 4 head swap ($1,200–$1,500), you approve the tier before work begins. No upsell, no account manager, no commission. The same direct process applies to SSD cases.
DriveSavers Comparison Questions
Does DriveSavers use the same equipment as you?
Yes. Both labs use PC-3000 from ACE Lab and DeepSpar Disk Imager for sector-level imaging. These are the industry-standard tools used by virtually every legitimate data recovery lab. The equipment is identical; the price difference comes from overhead, not capability.
Does DriveSavers pay referral commissions to IT shops?
Yes. DriveSavers maintains a large network of referral partners. When your local IT provider or computer repair shop refers you to DriveSavers, they often receive a commission. That cost gets built into the recovery price you pay. We do not operate a referral commission program.
What does DriveSavers typically charge compared to your pricing?
DriveSavers typically quotes $1,500 to $7,000+ for HDD recovery. Our published pricing runs $100–$2,000 across 5 tiers: simple copy $100, file system recovery From $250, firmware repair $600–$900, head swap $1,200–$1,500, surface damage $2,000. The equipment and procedures are the same; the price difference comes from their marketing budget, referral commissions, and facility overhead.
DriveSavers has an ISO 14644-1 Class 5 cleanroom. Does your clean bench work as well?
For data recovery, yes. A laminar-flow clean bench creates a localized clean zone with ULPA filtration at the workstation where the drive is opened. The critical area is the space directly above the open drive, not the entire room. Our ULPA-filtered bench is validated to 0.02 µm particle count. An entire walk-in cleanroom adds facility cost without improving recovery outcomes.
Why is a cleanroom irrelevant for SSD recovery?
SSD NAND chips are sealed packages. Recovery involves firmware repair with PC-3000 SSD, chip-off reading (unencrypted drives only; not applicable to Apple T2/M-series hardware), or controller replacement. None of these procedures expose internal components to airborne particles. Billing for an ISO 14644-1 Class 5 cleanroom on an SSD case is billing for a resource the job does not require.
Should I try running recovery software before sending my drive to a lab?
Only if the drive is not making abnormal sounds and mounts normally. If a drive is clicking, beeping, grinding, or not detected by the BIOS, running consumer recovery software or OS utilities like chkdsk will force the failing heads across degraded platters. This scores the media surface and causes permanent data loss. A legitimate lab stabilizes the hardware first, creates a sector-level clone using PC-3000 or DeepSpar, and only then performs logical file extraction on the clone.
Can you recover deleted files from a modern NVMe or SATA SSD?
In most cases, no. Modern operating systems send the TRIM command (or UNMAP on enterprise drives) to the SSD controller the moment a file is deleted. TRIM tells the controller those blocks are no longer needed. The controller then physically erases the underlying NAND cells during its background garbage collection process. Once erased, the data cannot be recovered at the flash level. This is a hardware-level limitation, not a software one. Any lab that promises guaranteed recovery of deleted SSD files is not being honest about the physics of flash storage.
Is DriveSavers worth the price?
If you have a Seagate Rosewood drive with a mechanical head failure, DriveSavers will use the same ACE Lab PC-3000 hardware and laminar flow bench to perform the head swap that we use. The procedure is identical: match donor heads from the same drive family, transplant the head stack assembly, image the platters zone-by-zone, then extract the file system from the clone. Paying $3,000+ instead of $1,200–$1,500 does not change the physical steps or increase the probability of recovery. The premium covers their referral commission network and walk-in cleanroom facility overhead.
How much does DriveSavers charge?
Based on customer reports and independent lab pricing surveys, DriveSavers typically quotes $1,500 to $4,000 for standard mechanical HDD recoveries. Complex cases involving RAID arrays or severe platter scoring can exceed $7,000. Our published pricing runs $100 for a simple data copy from a functional drive, From $250 for file system corruption, $600–$900 for firmware repair, $1,200–$1,500 for a head swap, and $2,000 for platter surface damage. Both labs use PC-3000 and DeepSpar. The cost difference is overhead, not capability.
Why does my local IT shop recommend Drive Savers instead of a smaller lab?
DriveSavers maintains a network of over 20,000 referral partners across the US. When your local computer repair shop sends a drive to DriveSavers and the recovery succeeds, that shop receives a commission check. The commission cost is built into the $2,000 to $7,000+ quote the customer ultimately pays. A shop recommending DriveSavers is not necessarily recommending the best lab for your case; it is recommending the lab that pays them. Rossmann Group does not operate a referral commission program. Our pricing starts at $100 for HDD and $200 for SSD because we do not subsidize a nationwide partner network.
Can I fix a clicking hard drive by swapping the circuit board myself?
No. Modern hard drive PCBs contain an 8-pin ROM chip that stores drive-specific adaptive parameters: head fly-height calibration, servo tuning, defect maps, and micro-jog tables unique to each individual drive. A board swap without transferring the ROM chip will cause the drive to fail initialization and may force mismatched heads across the platters. Proper ROM transfer requires desoldering the chip from the original board with a hot air rework station and resoldering it onto the donor. After the swap, the drive's System Area must be verified through PC-3000 to confirm the adaptive data loaded correctly. Both DriveSavers and Rossmann Group perform this same ROM extraction step; the difference is the price. Our firmware repair tier runs $600–$900; a head swap with ROM transfer costs $1,200–$1,500.
Can recovery software replace sending my drive to a lab like DriveSavers?
Only if the drive is physically healthy and the failure is purely logical (accidental deletion, formatting, partition table corruption). Software cannot address a seized spindle motor, failed read/write heads, or corrupted controller firmware. If your drive clicks, beeps, or is not detected by the BIOS, running consumer recovery software forces the failing heads across damaged platters and causes permanent data loss. A legitimate lab stabilizes the hardware first, creates a sector-by-sector clone with PC-3000 or DeepSpar, and performs logical extraction on the clone. On SSDs, TRIM unmaps deleted blocks and the controller's garbage collection erases the underlying NAND; no software can undo that.
What happens when DriveSavers gives you a wide price range?
Data recovery labs that quote wide ranges ($1,500 to $3,900, for example) build in pricing flexibility that consistently resolves at the top of the bracket. The lower end of the range reduces the customer's resistance to shipping the drive; the actual invoice lands near the ceiling. Rossmann Group publishes fixed tiers tied to the fault, not a negotiable range. If your drive needs a Tier 2 file system repair, you pay From $250. If it needs a Tier 4 head swap, you pay $1,200–$1,500. There is no escalation within a tier because there is no arbitrary range to escalate within.
Does a cleanroom fix a SanDisk or WD SSD stuck in BSY state?
No. Drives using the Marvell 88SS1074 controller (such as the SanDisk Ultra II and early WD Blue SATA SSDs) frequently suffer firmware corruption that locks the drive in a permanent BSY (Busy) state. The controller enters an initialization loop and drops off the BIOS entirely. This is a firmware panic, not a physical intrusion problem. Recovery requires interfacing with the drive's diagnostic terminal port at 1.8V to reach the PC-3000 Marvell utility, then rebuilding the corrupted translator tables so the NAND contents become addressable again. No part of this repair involves opening the drive or controlling airborne particles. Billing for an ISO 14644-1 Class 5 cleanroom on a Marvell 88SS1074 firmware panic is billing for a resource the job never uses.
How does a manufacturer controller swap affect SSD recovery?
Manufacturers sometimes change SSD controllers mid-production without updating the model number. ADATA swapped the Silicon Motion SM2262EN for the SM2262G in the SX8200 Pro without any external indication. When either variant suffers power loss, the Flash Translation Layer (FTL) corrupts and Windows reads the partition as RAW. The symptom is identical, but each controller requires a completely different firmware loader within the PC-3000 Silicon Motion Active Utility to reconstruct the FTL. A lab that runs the wrong loader will fail the rebuild. Proper recovery starts with physical IC identification of the actual controller on the PCB, not the model name printed on the box.
