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No partition information and Input/output error

Posted: 10 Mar 2017, 15:23
by orbit503
Hello,

I have a HFS+ SSD that was retrofitted in a Mac, which suddenly stopped working. It's now hooked up on a Linux box, showing with "lshw -C disk".

When I try testdisk on it, it shows no partition information, running Quicksearch or Deepsearch doesn't find any as well. The log fills up with:

Code: Select all

...
file_pread(5,1,buffer,2198(1/4/23)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(5,1,buffer,2199(1/4/24)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(5,14,buffer,2200(1/4/25)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(5,1,buffer,2216(1/5/9)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(5,1,buffer,2263(1/6/24)) read err: Input/output error
...
I tried using ddrescue as per suggestion, which also can't read anything and basically results in a 0 bytes Images with 0 bytes rescued per stats.

Is there anything left to do or can I assume the SSD has a severe hardware failure that is not recoverable? I did not try to partition/reformat it yet!

Thank you in advance for any advice,

Orbit503

Re: No partition information and Input/output error

Posted: 10 Mar 2017, 18:21
by cgrenier
Reformating will not work. The flash controller is probably damaged. If the data are of great value, you can always contact a data recovery company.
Otherwise use the warranty to replace the SSD.

Re: No partition information and Input/output error

Posted: 10 Mar 2017, 18:56
by orbit503
Thank you for the quick reply!

You confirmed my guess. Just for clarification: the "read error" on every block basically means it's impossible to get any data at all from the storage itself, while the device (controller) as such is visible?

There is a firmware update for the drive available (Samsung 470 series), I'll try that just for the fun of it, but my expectations are low.

Thanks for your work!

Best regards,
Orbit503