How Much Does ADATA SSD Data Recovery Cost?
ADATA SATA SSD recovery (SU800, SU650, SU760) ranges from $200 for a simple data copy to $1,200–$1,500 for NAND swap with microsoldering. ADATA NVMe recovery (XPG SX8200 Pro, LEGEND series) ranges from $200 to $2,500. Evaluation is free, and no data means no charge.
ADATA SATA SSD Pricing (SU800, SU650, SU760)
Low complexity
Simple Copy
Your drive works, you just need the data moved off it
Functional drive; data transfer to new media
Rush available: +$100
$200
3-5 business days
Low complexity
File System Recovery
Your drive isn't showing up, but it's not physically damaged
File system corruption. Visible to recovery software but not to OS
Starting price; final depends on complexity
From $250
2-4 weeks
Medium complexity
Circuit Board Repair
Your drive won't power on or has shorted components
PCB issues: failed voltage regulators, dead PMICs, shorted capacitors
May require a donor drive (additional cost)
$450–$600
3-6 weeks
Medium complexity
Most Common
Firmware Recovery
Your drive is detected but shows the wrong name, wrong size, or no data
Firmware corruption: ROM, modules, or system files corrupted
Price depends on extent of bad areas in NAND
$600–$1,200
3-6 weeks
High complexity
PCB / NAND Swap
Your drive's circuit board is severely damaged and requires NAND chip transplant to a donor PCB
NAND swap onto donor PCB. Precision microsoldering and BGA rework required
50% deposit required; donor drive cost additional
50% deposit required
$1,200–$1,500
4-8 weeks
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. 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.
+$100 rush fee to move to the front of the queue. 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.
ADATA NVMe SSD Pricing (XPG, GAMMIX, LEGEND)
Low complexity
Simple Copy
Your NVMe drive works, you just need the data moved off it
Functional drive; data transfer to new media
Rush available: +$100
$200
3-5 business days
Low complexity
File System Recovery
Your NVMe drive isn't showing up, but it's not physically damaged
File system corruption. Visible to recovery software but not to OS
Starting price; final depends on complexity
From $250
2-4 weeks
Medium complexity
Circuit Board Repair
Your NVMe drive won't power on or has shorted components
PCB issues: failed voltage regulators, dead PMICs, shorted capacitors
May require a donor drive (additional cost)
$900–$1,200
3-6 weeks
Medium complexity
Most Common
Firmware Recovery
Your NVMe drive is detected but shows the wrong name, wrong size, or no data
Firmware corruption: ROM, modules, or system files corrupted
Price depends on extent of bad areas in NAND
$900–$1,200
3-6 weeks
High complexity
PCB / NAND Swap
Your NVMe drive's circuit board is severely damaged and requires NAND chip transplant to a donor PCB
NAND swap onto donor PCB. Precision microsoldering and BGA rework required
50% deposit required; donor drive cost additional
50% deposit required
$1,200–$2,500
4-8 weeks
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. 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.
+$100 rush fee to move to the front of the queue. 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.
How Do We Recover Data from ADATA SSDs?
ADATA SSD recovery follows a four-step process: identify the controller vendor & model, diagnose the failure type, stabilize the controller through firmware intervention or board repair, & image the data.
- 01
Identify the controller
We identify the specific controller: Silicon Motion SM2258/SM2259XT (SATA), SM2262EN (NVMe Gen3), or Realtek NVMe silicon. ADATA uses different controllers across product lines & sometimes within the same model name, so visual PCB inspection confirms the silicon.
- 02
Diagnose the failure category
If the controller responds to PC-3000 SSD, we check firmware status, FTL integrity, & NAND health. If the controller is dead (no response at all), we use FLIR thermal imaging to locate shorted voltage regulators or failed PMICs on the PCB.
- 03
Repair or reconstruct firmware
For firmware failures on Silicon Motion SATA controllers, PC-3000 SSD loads a safe mode firmware module into the controller's RAM, bypassing the corrupted boot sequence. The utility then accesses the raw NAND pages & rebuilds the FTL mapping from residual metadata. For hardware failures on any model, we replace shorted components using a Hakko FM-2032 on an FM-203 base station.
- 04
Image & verify
With the controller stabilized, we image the drive sector-by-sector. On Silicon Motion SATA drives, data is scrambled (XOR randomization); PC-3000 SSD reverses the scrambling automatically. On a drive brought back by board repair, the revived original controller serves the data over its normal host interface. File system analysis verifies directory structure & individual file integrity. Data ships via nationwide mail-in service. All work is in-house at our Austin, TX lab.
How ADATA SSDs Fail
ADATA sources controllers from Silicon Motion, InnoGrit, & Realtek. This means ADATA SSDs share failure modes with every other brand using the same controller silicon: Crucial, Kingston, WD, Corsair.
The recovery advantage: PC-3000 SSD's Silicon Motion utility covers the SM2258XT, SM2259XT, SM2262EN, & SM2263XT. The same loader injection & FTL reconstruction procedures that recover a Crucial MX500 apply to an ADATA SU800. Controller-level expertise transfers across all Silicon Motion brands.
Firmware failures cause the controller to lock out, report wrong capacity, or drop the drive's identity string. Hardware failures include shorted voltage regulators, dead PMICs, & NAND cell degradation from write exhaustion. Both require lab-level intervention with firmware repair or board-level microsoldering.
What Are the Known ADATA SSD Failure Patterns?
SU800 & SU650: Silicon Motion FTL Corruption
The ADATA SU800 uses a Silicon Motion SM2258 controller with DRAM cache. Early SU650 production ran the DRAM-less SM2258XT. Both controllers store critical Flash Translation Layer data in TLC NAND. When those NAND pages degrade past the controller's LDPC error correction capacity, the FTL mapping corrupts. The drive enters ROM mode: it reports 0 bytes in BIOS & may display a raw controller string like "SM2258XT" instead of "ADATA SU650." This is the same failure mechanism that produces the SATAFIRM S11 lockout on the Phison PS3111-S11. PC-3000 SSD's Silicon Motion utility loads a safe mode module to bypass the corrupted boot sequence & reconstruct the FTL from NAND residuals.
XPG SX8200 Pro: Firmware Instability
The XPG SX8200 Pro was one of ADATA's most popular NVMe SSDs, shipping with a Silicon Motion SM2262EN controller. Recovery starts by identifying the silicon actually on the PCB, then using the matching PC-3000 SSD Silicon Motion Utility module.
ADATA LEGEND Series: Mixed Controller Failures
ADATA's LEGEND line spans budget to high-end NVMe drives built on several different controllers. When a LEGEND drive fails, the first step is identifying the actual controller on the PCB, because the recovery procedure & encryption status depend on which silicon is inside.
Can Recovery Software Fix an ADATA SSD?
Recovery software works on ADATA SSDs with logical failures only: accidental deletion (with TRIM disabled) or partition table corruption. The drive must be physically healthy, detected in BIOS with its correct model name & capacity, and responding to read commands.
Software can't fix an SU800 showing 0 bytes in BIOS, an XPG drive that dropped off the NVMe bus, or any ADATA SSD with a dead controller. These failures mean the controller isn't serving data to the operating system. No software running on the OS can talk to hardware the OS can't see.
TRIM is the other boundary. On ADATA SSDs with TRIM enabled (the default on Windows 7+ & on macOS for Apple-shipped SSDs), deleted files are unmapped from NAND within seconds to minutes. The controller unmaps those logical addresses and schedules garbage collection. Once garbage collection completes, no software & no lab can recover that data. If your ADATA SSD has failed (not detected, wrong capacity, or sudden death), power it down & send it for evaluation.
What Should I Do if My ADATA SSD Is Not Detected?
A drive that shows 0 bytes or the wrong capacity is detected but locked. A drive that's invisible everywhere is a different kind of failure.
Before sending the drive, rule out the obvious. These checks cost nothing.
- Check the BIOS/UEFI device list. Reboot, enter BIOS (F2 or Del on most boards), and look under Storage or NVMe Configuration. If the ADATA SSD shows any model string (even with 0MB capacity), the controller is partially alive.
- Try a different SATA port or M.2 slot. Some motherboards disable M.2 slots when specific SATA ports are populated. For SU800/SU650 SATA SSDs, try a different SATA cable & port. For XPG/LEGEND NVMe drives, try the primary M.2 slot closest to the CPU.
- Test in a USB enclosure. A USB-to-SATA or USB-to-NVMe enclosure on another computer isolates whether the issue is the drive or the motherboard.
- Stop here if the drive isn't detected anywhere. Do not run ADATA SSD Toolbox, do not attempt firmware updates, do not run secure erase. A drive with a dead controller needs board-level repair, not software troubleshooting. Power it down & send it for evaluation. Free diagnosis.
SATA ADATA SSD board repair: $450–$600. NVMe ADATA SSD board repair: $900–$1,200. +$100 rush fee to move to the front of the queue.
Pre-Failure Symptoms vs. Cache Exhaustion: How to Tell the Difference
Two ADATA SSD slowdowns get mistaken for each other. One is benign & transient. The other means the drive is failing & you should stop using it now. The distinction matters because continued use of a drive in pre-failure makes the recovery harder & sometimes impossible.
SLC Cache Exhaustion (Benign)
- Transfer rate drops during multi-gigabyte sustained writes.
- Throughput is slow but steady; the drive keeps moving data.
- Speeds recover after the drive sits idle for several minutes & the controller folds the SLC cache back to TLC or QLC.
- Common on DRAM-less drives: SU650, SU630, SU635, LEGEND 850.
FTL or Firmware Corruption (Data at Risk)
- Windows Task Manager shows 100% Active Time at 0 KB/s. The controller accepted the I/O but cannot complete it.
- System freezes for seconds or minutes when specific apps touch the drive.
- Audio stutters or cuts out during normal use.
- Drive disappears from File Explorer after a reboot & reappears on next boot, or vice versa.
- BIOS may show 0 bytes or the raw controller string instead of the ADATA model name.
The non-destructive triage rule when symptoms in the right column appear: power the drive down. Do not run CHKDSK on a failing SSD. Don't update the firmware on a drive that's acting unstable. To verify the drive is detected at all, move it to a USB-to-SATA or USB-to-NVMe enclosure on another machine & check the BIOS device list. That step is safe; running diagnostic software against the failing drive is not.
Controllers Used in ADATA SSDs
Silicon Motion SATA: SM2258 and SM2259XT
The Silicon Motion SM2258 powers the ADATA SU800, ADATA's long-running mainstream SATA SSD. The SU900 used the same SM2258 paired with 3D MLC NAND, one of the few mainstream consumer drives to ship with MLC instead of TLC.
Early SU650 production ran the SM2258XT, a DRAM-less variant of the same family. When SM2258 or SM2258XT FTL pages degrade, the controller enters ROM mode & the drive reports 0 bytes. PC-3000 SSD's Silicon Motion utility loads a safe mode firmware module for both controllers, bypassing the corrupted boot sequence & rebuilding the translation table from NAND residuals.
How a Panicked SM2258XT or SM2259XT Is Recovered on PC-3000 SSD
ADATA's consumer SATA lineup is a moving target at the bill-of-materials level. The SU800 ships with the SM2258 (the SM2258G & SM2258H revisions both appear in retail) paired with Micron 3D TLC. Early SU650 production ran the DRAM-less SM2258XT. Later production swapped in the SM2259XT or SM2259XT2.
When one of these panics, the drive drops its consumer model string. Disk Management, Device Manager, or the host BIOS will instead report the raw silicon descriptor, such as SM2258XT or SM2259XT. Reported capacity collapses to 0 bytes. The SATAFIRM S11 identifier is not an SMI symptom. That string belongs exclusively to the Phison PS3111-S11 bootROM & will never appear on a Silicon Motion drive. If a drive enumerates as SATAFIRM S11, it's a Phison controller, not an SMI one.
The drive may register in Device Manager for a moment then drop, or never register at all. No LBAs are exposed to the host, so EaseUS, R-Studio, Disk Drill, & every other host-side recovery scanner sees either nothing or a 0-byte uninitialized device. There is no logical volume to scan because the controller never finished telling the host that one exists.
The recovery path for SM2256, SM2258, SM2258XT, & SM2259XT on PC-3000 SSD starts at the PCB itself. You have to force Safe Mode physically on the board before any loader goes into RAM. Forcing it that way keeps the controller out of the corrupted on-NAND firmware & in its read-only Mask ROM.
Once the controller is parked in Safe Mode, the ACELab Silicon Motion utility injects a loader (LDR) into the controller's RAM.
When the right loader is in place, it strips out TRIM, wear-leveling, & garbage collection so no background activity can touch the NAND during imaging. Cycling power returns the controller to its ROM-mode starting position.
Silicon Motion controllers write XOR-scrambled pages to the NAND. The scrambling keeps charge distribution even across cells & is not AES-256 encryption, but the raw NAND bytes are not directly readable as user data.
Because the SM2258XT & SM2259XT keep their FTL only on the NAND itself, a degraded system block destroys the L2P map outright. With the loader running, PC-3000 SSD reconstructs the translator from the NAND rather than from the drive's own broken copy.
The drive can then be imaged sector by sector. Nothing gets written back to the failed SSD, & the original NAND stays read-only.
If the data on the drive matters, send it to a lab before anyone runs a vendor mass-production or reinitialization utility against it.
Online guides for these symptoms point people at consumer recovery software (EaseUS, R-Studio, Disk Drill, PhotoRec) on a drive in BSY or ROM state. These tools sit above the OS storage driver. They cannot see a drive that refuses to expose LBAs to the SATA host. They scan nothing because there is nothing for them to scan.
Background on the controller family lives at our Silicon Motion architecture page. The mechanics of ROM-mode entry across vendors are covered at firmware panics & ROM mode. A cross-vendor view of controller-level recovery sits at our SSD controllers overview. If your ADATA SU800, SU650, or SP550 has dropped to a raw SMI descriptor or is hanging the host on POST, see our SSD data recovery service page for pricing, turnaround, & the no data, no recovery fee policy.
Silicon Motion NVMe: SM2262EN, SM2267XT, and SM2269XT
The SM2262EN in the XPG SX8200 Pro is a dual-core ARM NVMe Gen3 controller with DRAM, and PC-3000 SSD supports it. The SM2269XT (Gen4) is supported by the same Silicon Motion utility for safe mode entry & FTL reconstruction. The SM2264 is Silicon Motion's highest-end Gen4 controller with dedicated DRAM cache; it currently lacks a PC-3000 SSD utility module, so a drive built on one relies on board-level hardware repair rather than firmware reconstruction.
The SM2267 & SM2267XT sit a tier below the SM2262 in Silicon Motion's Gen3/Gen4 NVMe line, and the XT suffix is the whole story. The plain SM2267 carries an onboard DRAM cache for its Flash Translation Layer. The SM2267XT drops that DRAM chip & leans on Host Memory Buffer (HMB) instead, borrowing a slice of the host's system RAM over PCIe to hold hot FTL entries. Same naming pattern as the SATA SM2258 vs. SM2258XT split already on this page.
The SM2267XT is supported by PC-3000 SSD's Silicon Motion utility. When one of these drops into a BSY state or stops exposing full capacity after a power loss, recovery works the same way it does on the SMI SATA drives. We short the technology test points to park the controller in Safe Mode, inject the matching loader through Vendor Specific Commands, then rebuild the translator from the NAND. Cycling power returns the controller to ROM mode.
Because ADATA frequently swaps controllers across production runs without changing the model name, we identify the actual silicon on the PCB before selecting a module rather than guessing from the model name. An ADATA NVMe drive built on the SM2267XT recovers through this same Safe Mode loader path. NVMe firmware recovery runs $900–$1,200.
InnoGrit IG5236: Board-Level Repair Only
The InnoGrit IG5236 is an NVMe PCIe Gen4 controller with onboard DRAM. Rossmann does not currently offer in-lab recovery for InnoGrit IG5236. The IG5236 is not in PC-3000 SSD's supported list, so there is no firmware-level loader path for it; recovery on a drive built around one means board-level repair to bring the original controller back to a responsive state, after which it serves data over the standard NVMe interface. NVMe board repair runs $900–$1,200.
Realtek RTS5763DL: Board-Level Repair Only
Rossmann does not currently offer in-lab recovery for Realtek RTS5763DL. No Realtek NVMe controller is in PC-3000 SSD's supported list, so there's no firmware-level utility path. The recovery vector is board-level repair to revive the original controller. If a Realtek DRAM-less NVMe controller turns up on an ADATA PCB, it falls outside PC-3000 SSD support & into the board-repair tier at $900–$1,200.
Map Your ADATA Drive: Controller, PC-3000 Status, Recovery Vector
The controller decides the recovery path, not the ADATA label. Match your drive to its controller, then read across to the recovery vector before assuming software or chip-off applies.
| Controller Family | Architecture | PC-3000 SSD Status | Recovery Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silicon Motion SM2267XT | NVMe, DRAM-less (HMB) | Supported (SMI utility) | Safe Mode loader, FTL rebuild from NAND |
| InnoGrit IG5236 | NVMe Gen4, DRAM | Not supported | Board-level repair, revive controller |
| Realtek RTS5763DL | NVMe | Not supported | Board-level repair, revive controller |
Rossmann does not currently offer in-lab recovery for InnoGrit IG5236 or Realtek RTS5763DL; both are board-repair-only. Send the drive for a free evaluation & we confirm the controller on the PCB before quoting. No data, no recovery fee.
XPG GAMMIX S50: Phison NVMe PS5016-E16
The original GAMMIX S50 runs on the Phison PS5016-E16. The SX8200 Pro, GAMMIX S11 Pro, S40G, Falcon, & Swordfish all use Silicon Motion or Realtek silicon. The S50 Lite uses the Silicon Motion SM2267, not Phison.
Realtek NVMe Controllers in ADATA Drives
Realtek is a newer entrant in the SSD controller market, and PC-3000 SSD does not currently support Realtek NVMe controllers. Recovery from Realtek-based ADATA drives focuses on board-level hardware repair to keep the original controller alive & serving data.
How Does Encryption Affect ADATA SSD Recovery?
ADATA SSDs have different encryption implementations depending on the controller. Understanding which model uses what encryption determines whether chip-off recovery is viable or whether the original controller must be repaired.
- SU800 & SU650 (Silicon Motion SM2258, SM2259XT)
- No always-on AES-256 hardware encryption. Silicon Motion's XOR scrambling breaks up repeating bit patterns for NAND reliability. It isn't encryption, & there's no controller-bound key. PC-3000 SSD reverses the scrambling automatically during imaging. Chip-off is theoretically possible but impractical because the FTL page mapping must still be reconstructed.
- XPG SX8200 Pro (Silicon Motion SM2262EN)
- Even without encryption, the Silicon Motion NVMe controller uses XOR data scrambling.
- LEGEND Series (Mixed Controllers)
- Encryption status depends on which controller is inside the specific LEGEND model. In all cases, the original controller is the safest recovery path. We identify the specific controller on the PCB before determining the recovery procedure.
ADATA SSD Product Line Reference
ADATA's SSD lineup spans budget SATA, mainstream NVMe, & high-performance Gen4 drives under both the ADATA & XPG brands.
| Model | Interface | Controller | Encryption | Common Failure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SU800 | SATA | SM2258 | Scrambled (no AES) | FTL corruption, 0 bytes |
| SU650 | SATA | SM2258XT / SM2259XT | Scrambled (no AES) | DRAM-less FTL failure |
| XPG GAMMIX S50 Lite | NVMe Gen4 | Silicon Motion NVMe | Scrambled | Firmware corruption |
| LEGEND 750 | NVMe Gen3 | Maxio MAP1202 | Dynamic XOR scrambling | PCIe dropout, FTL panic |
| LEGEND 900 | NVMe Gen4 | Maxio MAP1602 | Dynamic XOR scrambling | Firmware panic |
| XPG GAMMIX S50 (original) | NVMe Gen4 | Phison PS5016-E16 | AES-256 (varies by firmware) | Firmware lockout, controller death |
Why DRAM-less ADATA SSDs Fail Differently
The ADATA SU650, SU630, & SU635 are DRAM-less SATA SSDs. The LEGEND 850 is a DRAM-less NVMe SSD. DRAM-less means there is no dedicated DRAM cache chip on the PCB. The absence of that chip changes how the Flash Translation Layer (FTL) is managed, & it changes what happens when the drive loses power mid-write.
How DRAM-less SATA Controllers Handle the FTL
On an SU650 (SM2258XT, DRAM-less), the FTL lives in a reserved metadata region of the TLC NAND. The controller caches the hottest mapping entries in a small internal SRAM & keeps paging FTL fragments back & forth between that SRAM & the NAND, which hurts 4K random I/O.
How HMB Differs on DRAM-less NVMe
NVMe 1.2 introduced Host Memory Buffer (HMB), which lets a DRAM-less NVMe SSD reach across the PCIe bus via DMA & borrow a slice of the host computer's system RAM. DRAM-less ADATA NVMe controllers use HMB to hold active FTL entries in host RAM instead of NAND. Random I/O recovers most of the speed lost to the DRAM-less design. Two caveats matter for recovery. First, HMB isn't available over USB bridges, so a DRAM-less ADATA NVMe drive in a USB enclosure falls back to the same latency as a DRAM-less SATA drive. Second, the persistent FTL still lives on the NAND. HMB is only a working cache.
Power Loss & Retroactive FTL Corruption
An SM2258XT whose FTL has corrupted can hang in an indefinite BSY state. At that point, the logical path between the OS & the NAND is severed. Consumer software can't reach the data, & the only way to get it back is work at the board level. SSD firmware corruption recovery starts here.
How Do Maxio Controllers Fail?
Maxio Technology controllers turn up in ADATA SSDs alongside Silicon Motion and Realtek silicon. Packaging, model number, & firmware updater names do not tell you which controller is on the board, so we confirm it by visual PCB inspection before quoting.
Maxio MAS0902: DRAM-less SATA
The MAS0902 is a 4-channel DRAM-less SATA controller. PC-3000 SSD has full Active Utility support for the MAS0902, including vendor-specific commands to enter Safe Mode & volatile loader injection into controller RAM. The same loader family covers the MAS0902's rebrand variants (including the Lexar DM918) using Maxio reference designs.
Maxio MAS1102 Support Status
ACELab's published supported-drive list carries the MAS1102 and the DM928 as their own supported family.
Maxio MAP1202 in LEGEND 750
The MAP1202 is a DRAM-less Gen3 NVMe controller with 4 NAND channels and Host Memory Buffer support. It powers the ADATA LEGEND 750, typically paired with 3D TLC NAND. Maxio NVMe controllers (MAP1202, MAP1602, MAP1602A) are not currently supported by PC-3000 SSD firmware utilities; recovery for these controllers requires board-level repair to bring the original silicon back to a responsive state, after which data is read out over the standard NVMe interface. The LEGEND 900 moves to the Maxio MAP1602 (PCIe 4.0).
Maxio BSY State on Boot
A MAS0902 that cannot bring its FTL up can enter a continuous BSY state after power on, holding the SATA bus busy as the controller cycles through failed NAND initialization attempts. That state is not recoverable through software running on the host OS. Power the drive down & ship it to the lab.
Why Chip-Off Recovery Fails on Maxio
Desoldering the NAND from a Maxio drive yields scrambled data that cannot be reassembled without the original silicon to reverse the XOR sequence. Recovery requires the original controller to be alive & responding; if the MAS0902 die is physically destroyed by a power surge or a previous DIY repair attempt, the data is gone.
PC-3000 SSD Safe Mode Workflow for ADATA SMI Controllers
On an ADATA drive with a Silicon Motion controller, PC-3000 SSD works around the corrupted on-NAND firmware & rebuilds a read-only translator. Nothing gets written back to the degraded SSD.
- 01
Technology-pin shorting
The SM2258XT & SM2259XT enter Safe Mode through a dedicated pair of test points on the PCB, shorted as the drive powers up. The short disconnects the controller CPU from the NAND boot path, which breaks the BSY state & blocks background garbage collection or TRIM from running while we work.
- 02
Loader injection
The loader is pushed into the controller's RAM via Vendor Specific Commands. Once loaded, the controller runs in Technology Mode: channel-level access to NAND, all writes & TRIMs blocked, ECC & scrambling logic available for the utility to drive.
- 03
Configuration-page extraction
The utility reads the drive's configuration pages, which define the geometry the virtual translator needs.
- 04
Virtual translator reconstruction
The utility scans every physical NAND block & assembles a fresh LBA-to-PBA map. That virtual FTL is never written back to the ADATA drive. Once the map compiles, we open the drive in the Data Extractor module, verify the file system, & image sector-by-sector to a known-good destination. This is the standard Silicon Motion recovery path for every SMI SATA brand.
Why We Read the Controller off the PCB Before Quoting
A model name does not pin down the silicon inside an ADATA drive. Production runs change, and the recovery path follows the controller rather than the label on the case.
When a drive arrives for recovery, we inspect the PCB and read the chip markings. The answer decides everything downstream: whether PC-3000 SSD has a loader for that silicon, whether the job is firmware work or board-level repair, and what the quote looks like.
ADATA SSD Recovery FAQ
How much does ADATA SSD data recovery cost?
ADATA SATA SSD recovery (SU800, SU650, SU760) starts at $200 for a simple copy and ranges up to $1,200–$1,500 for NAND swap. ADATA NVMe recovery (XPG SX8200 Pro, LEGEND series) starts at $200 and ranges up to $1,200–$2,500. Evaluation is free, and no data means no charge. +$100 rush fee to move to the front of the queue.
Can data recovery software fix a failed ADATA SSD?
Recovery software works on ADATA SSDs with logical failures only: accidental deletion (with TRIM disabled) or partition corruption. The SSD must be physically healthy, detected in BIOS with correct model name & capacity, and responding to read commands. Software cannot communicate with a dead controller, a drive showing wrong capacity, or one that dropped off the SATA/NVMe bus. Running software scans on a failing ADATA SSD stresses degrading NAND cells and can trigger garbage collection that permanently erases data.
Why did my ADATA SSD suddenly show 0 bytes or wrong capacity?
ADATA SATA SSDs using Silicon Motion SM2258XT or SM2259XT controllers store their Flash Translation Layer in TLC NAND rather than in dedicated DRAM cache. When those NAND pages degrade beyond the controller's LDPC correction capacity, the FTL mapping corrupts and the controller enters ROM mode. The drive reports 0 bytes in BIOS and may display a raw controller string like 'SM2258XT' instead of the ADATA model name. This is the same failure mechanism behind the SATAFIRM S11 bug on the Phison PS3111-S11. PC-3000 SSD's Silicon Motion utility loads a safe mode firmware module to bypass the corrupted FTL and reconstruct the translation table from NAND residuals.
Does ADATA SSD encryption prevent data recovery?
It depends on the model and controller. On ADATA's Silicon Motion SATA drives, the controller XOR-scrambles the data, and PC-3000 SSD reverses that scrambling automatically.
What should I do if my ADATA SSD is not detected?
Try a different SATA port or M.2 slot first, then test in a USB enclosure on another computer. If the drive isn't detected anywhere, the failure is internal. Do not run ADATA SSD Toolbox or attempt firmware updates on an undetected drive. Power it down and send it for evaluation. SATA board repair: $450–$600. NVMe board repair: $900–$1,200. Free diagnosis.
How long does ADATA SSD data recovery take?
ADATA SSD recovery timelines depend on the failure type. Simple data copies take 3-5 business days. File system recovery takes 2-4 weeks. Firmware repairs take 3-6 weeks. Board-level circuit repair (shorted voltage regulators, dead PMICs) takes 3-6 weeks. NAND swap cases requiring microsoldering take 4-8 weeks. +$100 rush fee to move to the front of the queue.
What is HMB and why does it complicate DRAM-less ADATA SSD recovery?
Host Memory Buffer (HMB) is an NVMe 1.2 feature that lets a DRAM-less SSD borrow a slice of the host computer's system RAM over PCIe DMA to cache hot Flash Translation Layer entries. It's used in ADATA NVMe drives built around DRAM-less Silicon Motion controllers. SATA DRAM-less ADATA drives (SU650/SU630 on SM2258XT or SM2259XT) do not have HMB. The SATA protocol doesn't allow the controller to touch host RAM, so those drives page FTL fragments between a tiny internal SRAM and reserved NAND metadata pages. Recovery still requires PC-3000 SSD to enter Safe Mode on the original controller and rebuild the translator from surviving NAND residuals; HMB state is volatile and cannot be reconstructed from the drive after power loss.
Does ADATA's warranty cover data recovery?
No. ADATA's SSD warranty covers hardware replacement only. ADATA will send a replacement drive but does not recover data from the failed unit. If you file a warranty claim, ADATA may require the failed drive to be returned, and any data on it is gone once they receive it. Complete data recovery before pursuing a warranty claim for the hardware cost.
Why does my ADATA SSD freeze with 100% disk usage and 0 KB/s throughput?
Windows Task Manager showing 100% Active Time on an ADATA SSD while throughput sits at 0 KB/s is a pre-failure signal distinct from normal slowdown. The controller has accepted an I/O request but cannot complete it, typically because the Flash Translation Layer is failing internal consistency checks or a NAND read is timing out under uncorrectable LDPC error pressure. This is different from SLC cache exhaustion, which produces slow but steady transfer rates rather than a complete stall. If you see persistent 100% active time at 0 KB/s, especially with system stutters, audio cutouts, or the drive disappearing after a reboot, power the system down. Continued use stresses the failing controller and accelerates FTL damage. Do not run CHKDSK, do not attempt a firmware update, and do not run secure erase. Send the drive for evaluation.
Is my ADATA SSD slow because it's failing, or is that normal?
DRAM-less ADATA SSDs (SU650, SU630, SU635, LEGEND 850) slow down during multi-gigabyte sustained writes once the SLC cache fills, dropping to direct-to-TLC or direct-to-QLC speeds. This is benign and transient: throughput recovers when the drive sits idle and the controller folds the SLC cache back to TLC/QLC in the background. Failure-mode slowdown looks different. The drive freezes for seconds or minutes at a time, audio stutters during normal use, file operations stall completely (not slow), the drive shows 100% active time with 0 KB/s throughput, ADATA SSD Toolbox hangs or crashes, or the drive disappears after a reboot. If the symptoms persist after letting the drive idle, treat it as a failing drive and back up immediately.
What does it mean when ADATA SSD Toolbox hangs or firmware flashes fail?
Treat a Toolbox hang as a failing drive, not normal slowdown. Don't retry the firmware update. Back up what you can read using a sector-level imager, then send the drive for evaluation.
Will ADATA return my failed SSD if I file an RMA?
No. Under ADATA's standard warranty terms, the customer ships the defective unit to ADATA at the customer's expense (one-way shipping is not covered), ADATA does not offer cross-shipping or advance replacement, and the customer receives a refurbished or comparable replacement unit. The original drive is not returned. Any data on the failed SSD is destroyed during ADATA's internal handling, and the replacement unit may contain non-original components (different NAND batch, different firmware revision, sometimes a different controller revision under the same model name). Recover the data before filing the RMA. Once the drive ships to ADATA, the data is unrecoverable through any channel.
ADATA SSD not detected, showing 0 bytes, or dead after firmware update?
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