Extracting information from a failing SSD on a nonworking computer
Extracting information from a failing SSD on a nonworking computer
Hi everyone, after more than six years of consistent use my Dell Inspiron 7567 stopped booting up. I think it might be due to a faulty power supply, but I hope it can be fixed. I’d like to retrieve the data from its boot SSD first. There are no essential backups, but some files like game saves remain intact. The drive should be accessible without encryption—Windows 10 and a local account only. I’ve tried connecting it to an external enclosure that supports SATA M.2 SSDs, but it isn’t recognized by Windows 11 or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Since it’s a boot drive, I’m unsure if the issue lies with the enclosure or with software access. Unfortunately, I can’t easily swap it into another system because all my current setups use NVMe connectors. Anyone have experience fixing this kind of problem?
Have you tried inserting the additional drives and verified their presence?
To have Ubuntu identify the device, install ntfs-3g via the terminal using sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g. For users on other Linux distributions, the same tool works on your system with the correct command. Without this utility, the operating system can’t read NTFS-formatted drives. You might see a thumbnail of the drive on your desktop based on your device settings or by opening the file manager—once you enter your root password. Then you can move folders into your Linux partition, USB drive, or any online storage, making them accessible as regular files.
Typically you can fit an SATA M.2 drive into a PCIe(NVME) M.2 port, but not vice versa. Make sure to refer to the manual. I'm testing this for my game drive now.
Let me try it when I return to my Linux machine! I got sidetracked earlier, that’s likely the cause. I’ll verify once I’m back. My notes say Samsung 970 plus, but that’s an NVMe device and shouldn’t fit the SATA port for that model. I haven’t had a spare fresh drive before, which is why I wanted to eliminate any software problems first. === Thanks everyone – it looks like I should inspect the drive and test your advice to see if it resolves the issue.
I’m back at my desk with the Samsung 970 Evo. Keyed in M, it seems to be an M.2 slot externally, but the MoBa was already using SATA inside. The fdisk command isn’t showing it, even though the enclosure lights up. Changing cables didn’t resolve the issue. I tried swapping to a known working cable, but that didn’t help either. The “backup now” panel lit up somehow. Moving it to another USB port, including one directly connected to the machine, didn’t fix anything. Switching from a 3.0 port to a 2.0 port also didn’t work. The UEFI isn’t recognizing it. Notably, the disk gets quite hot, suggesting something might be wrong with the enclosure. Honestly, I’m not sure and think the enclosure could be the problem.
I changed my desktop Ubuntu installation (the 970 Evo Plus also worked fine) which suggests the issue might be hardware-related, like a problem with the enclosure converting M.2 to USB 3 or the drive not properly fitting into its slot. It seems to be fixing now and I’ve successfully recovered all my data. Any suggestions on how to resolve this?