What You Are Seeing
The symptoms are consistent across every affected drive. You plug the SSD into your computer, open Disk Management (Windows) or Disk Utility (macOS), and the drive shows up with a model string of "SATAFIRM S11" instead of its actual name. Capacity reads as 0 bytes or 8 MB. The drive may appear in BIOS but cannot be formatted, partitioned, or accessed. Windows may prompt you to initialize the disk; doing so will not help and risks overwriting the service area.
Common symptoms
- ●Drive model shows as "SATAFIRM S11" in BIOS, Device Manager, or Disk Management
- ●Capacity reports 0 bytes or 8 MB instead of the actual size
- ●Drive not detected at all by the operating system on some motherboards
- ●System hangs or freezes during boot if the SSD is the primary drive
What not to do
- ✗Do not initialize, format, or partition the drive through Disk Management
- ✗Do not run MPTool, Phison SATA Tool, or any mass production utility
- ✗Do not flash new firmware from the manufacturer's support page
- ✗Do not repeatedly power-cycle the drive; each boot attempt stresses degraded NAND cells
What Caused This
Every SSD stores its operating firmware in a reserved section of the same NAND flash that holds your data. This reserved area is called the service area. On Phison S11 and S12 controllers, the service area contains the firmware modules, the flash translation layer (FTL), bad block tables, and wear-leveling metadata. When any of these modules become corrupted or unreadable, the controller cannot boot its firmware. It falls back to a hardcoded identity: SATAFIRM S11.
The most common trigger is sudden power loss during a write operation. If power drops while the controller is updating the flash translation layer, the partially written FTL leaves the controller unable to boot. A power loss during garbage collection can produce the same result. Firmware bugs in the controller's garbage collection or wear-leveling routines are another documented cause; the controller corrupts its own metadata during a routine operation. On drives that have consumed most of their rated write endurance, NAND cell degradation in the service area can also trigger this failure, though controllers store firmware and metadata in pseudo-SLC mode (one bit per cell regardless of the NAND's native configuration) for higher durability than the user data region.
The controller chip itself is usually functional. The failure is in the firmware and metadata stored on NAND, not in the controller silicon. This is why the controller still responds to SATA enumeration and reports the SATAFIRM S11 string; it is alive but has no valid firmware to load. The NAND holding your user data is typically intact and unaffected by the service area corruption. The controller simply cannot build the map it needs to find your files.
Why DIY Fixes Destroy Data
Forum threads and YouTube tutorials recommend two approaches for SATAFIRM S11: running Phison's MPTool (Mass Production Tool) or flashing firmware from the drive manufacturer's website. Both are factory reset procedures. They restore the drive to a working, empty state by reinitializing the flash translation layer and overwriting the service area. Your data is gone after either operation.
MPTool was designed for SSD manufacturers to provision blank drives on the assembly line. It scans the NAND, builds a fresh FTL, writes clean firmware modules, and marks the drive as factory-new. It does not preserve existing data. It does not read the old FTL. It does not attempt recovery. Running MPTool on a drive that contains data you need is equivalent to formatting the drive; worse, actually, because it also destroys the metadata a recovery tool would use to rebuild the file system.
Clear rule: if the drive contains files you need, do not run MPTool, do not flash firmware, and do not let Windows initialize the disk. Power the drive down, disconnect it, and contact a lab that owns a PC-3000. The drive is not dead; it is waiting for someone who can read the NAND without destroying the map.
Standard recovery software (Recuva, R-Studio, Disk Drill) also cannot help here. These tools require the operating system to see the drive as a block device with a valid capacity. A drive in SATAFIRM S11 mode reports 0 bytes. There is no volume for the software to scan. The only access path is through vendor-level commands issued by professional hardware.
How We Recover SATAFIRM S11 Drives
Recovery uses the PC-3000 with its dedicated Phison SSD utility module. The process has four stages, and the drive is not powered on through a normal SATA connection until the firmware is stable.
Controller Identification
We identify the exact Phison controller variant (PS3111-S11, PS3112-S12, etc.), NAND manufacturer (Toshiba/Kioxia, Micron, SK Hynix), and firmware revision. This determines which PC-3000 loader module to use and which FTL structure to expect. Mismatching the loader bricks the recovery.
Safe Mode Access
PC-3000 issues Phison vendor-specific ATA commands to place the controller into a diagnostic mode that bypasses the corrupted firmware. In this mode, the controller does not attempt to boot from NAND. Instead, PC-3000 injects a working firmware loader directly into the controller's SRAM, giving it a temporary operating system that can read the flash.
Translator Rebuild
The flash translation layer maps logical block addresses (what your OS sees) to physical NAND pages (where data actually sits). When the FTL is corrupt, PC-3000 reconstructs it from surviving metadata in the NAND: page headers, block sequence numbers, and wear-level counters. This rebuild restores the logical-to-physical mapping without writing to the user data area.
Imaging and Extraction
With the translator rebuilt, the drive presents its real capacity and file system. We image the entire drive sector-by-sector to a known-good destination before touching the file system. Files are then verified against the original directory structure and transferred to your return media. The original SSD is never written to during this process.
Drives Affected by SATAFIRM S11
The SATAFIRM S11 failure occurs on any SATA SSD using a Phison S11 (PS3111) or S12 (PS3112) controller. These controllers are sold to dozens of SSD brands as turnkey solutions. The drive manufacturer buys the controller, pairs it with their chosen NAND, and applies a custom firmware label. Underneath the sticker, the hardware is identical. We recover all of them the same way.
Kingston
A400 (120GB, 240GB, 480GB). Higher capacities may use a different controller. The single most common SATAFIRM S11 drive we receive.
Patriot
Burst, Burst Elite. Phison S11 controller with Micron or SK Hynix TLC NAND.
Inland / PNY
Inland Professional SATA and PNY CS900 (up to 1TB). Phison S11 with various NAND suppliers.
Silicon Power / Goodram
Silicon Power Ace A55 (smaller capacities) and Goodram CL100 Gen.3. Confirmed Phison S11 in teardowns.
This is not a complete list. Any SATA SSD that reports "SATAFIRM S11" uses a Phison controller and is eligible for recovery regardless of brand. Send us the model and we will confirm. The PS3111-S11 is one of 20 SSD controllers we track with documented failure modes and recovery procedures.
Pricing
SATAFIRM S11 recovery: $300 to $600. Free evaluation, firm quote before paid work, no data recovered = no charge.
What is included
- ✓Free diagnostic evaluation
- ✓PC-3000 firmware module repair
- ✓Flash translation layer rebuild
- ✓Full drive imaging and file verification
- ✓Data returned on your choice of media
How to get started
- 1.Submit a free evaluation request or call (347) 552-2258
- 2.Ship the drive to our Austin, TX lab
- 3.Receive a firm quote within 1 to 2 business days
- 4.Approve or decline; no obligation, no charge if you decline
Compare our pricing to industry-wide data recovery costs. Large labs typically quote $800 to $3,000+ for the same firmware-level SSD work.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does SATAFIRM S11 mean?
SATAFIRM S11 is a fallback identity string burned into Phison S11 and S12 SSD controllers. When the drive's firmware (stored in NAND flash) becomes corrupted or unreadable, the controller boots into a minimal safe mode and reports itself as SATAFIRM S11 instead of the real drive model. The drive typically shows 0 bytes capacity and is inaccessible to the operating system.
Is my data still on the drive?
In most cases, yes. The SATAFIRM S11 state means the controller firmware is broken, not the NAND flash where your files live. The controller lost its firmware and flash translation layer, so it cannot locate or serve your data. The raw NAND cells still hold everything that was on the drive at the moment of failure. Recovery involves reloading a working firmware module so the controller can read the NAND again.
Can I fix SATAFIRM S11 myself with MPTool?
MPTool (Mass Production Tool) is a Phison factory utility that reflashes SSD firmware. It can bring a bricked controller back online, but it also reinitializes the flash translation layer and overwrites the service area. If you care about the data on the drive, running MPTool will destroy it. MPTool is a formatting tool, not a recovery tool. If the drive contains files you need, do not run MPTool.
How much does SATAFIRM S11 recovery cost?
Firmware-level SSD recovery for SATAFIRM S11 drives falls in the $300 to $600 range at our lab. We provide a firm quote after a free evaluation. If we cannot recover your data, you owe nothing. The price covers PC-3000 diagnostic time, firmware module repair, translator rebuild, and data extraction to your choice of return media.
Which drives are affected by SATAFIRM S11?
The most common models are the Kingston A400 (120GB through 480GB), Patriot Burst and Burst Elite, Inland Professional SATA, and PNY CS900 (up to 1TB). Any SATA SSD using a Phison PS3111-S11 or PS3112-S12 controller can exhibit this failure. The only reliable way to confirm the controller is to check the firmware identification string or open the drive. If your drive reports SATAFIRM S11 in BIOS, it uses a Phison controller regardless of the brand label.
SSD showing SATAFIRM S11?
Free evaluation. Firm quote. No data, no fee. Mail-in from anywhere in the U.S.