SSD Data Recovery: BitLocker-Encrypted ASUS NVMe Restored by Stellar

Early on a Monday, a project manager at a midsize insurance services firm in Kolkata tried to start her two-year-old ASUS Vivobook but saw only a spinning circle.

An urgent audit was due in three days, and data on 45,000 policyholders—spreadsheets, reports, and scanned claim images—was stored on the laptop’s secondary D: partition.

She needed her data urgently, so she visited a local data recovery vendor and explained her problem.

The technician at the shop ran a quick S.M.A.R.T. test, declared the solid-state drive (SSD) “severely corrupted,” and advised formatting. That would have erased every file.

The drive was further protected by BitLocker.

Without the 48-digit recovery key, even a working computer could not open the partitions. Conventional “plug-it-into-another-machine” methods would fail.

How the Client Found Us

The client searched for “SSD data recovery Kolkata” and found out about Stellar Data Recovery’s branch office in Kolkata. Google reviews and customer testimonials gave her confidence, and she reached out to us. Our data recovery expert took the details and explained the process and the chances of successful recovery to her over the phone, after which she requested an immediate pick-up.

By the following morning, the SSD was securely sitting on a test bench in our lab.

System Specifications:

Item	Details
Laptop	ASUS Vivobook 15 (Intel Core i5-1135G7, 8 GB RAM)
Storage	512 GB SanDisk SN530 NVMe SSD – M.2 2280
File System	Windows 11 Pro, NTFS, two partitions (C: 370 GB, D: 120 GB)
Protection	BitLocker full-disk encryption on both partitions

Solution and Approach

Step 1: Cloning

The SSD’s health rating was below 40%. Bad memory cells slowed every read to under 10 MB/s. Our senior SSD data recovery technician advised that further use risked total failure. So, our engineers placed the drive in a hardware-level imaging station that reads unstable media one block at a time. Then they cloned it onto a healthy SSD.

Step 2: Decryption

• The client supplied her 48-digit BitLocker key.
• Using a write-protected environment, we unlocked both partitions on the clone. Decryption exposed the normal NTFS file system, but the SSD showed signs of logical damage. The Master File Table (MFT) had missing entries, and some folders appeared empty.

Step 3: Volume Repair and File Extraction

• Our data engineers used proprietary Stellar utilities to rebuild the MFT, mapped lost directory links, and checked each sector for readable content.
• We prioritized three folders named “2025,” “Documents,” and “Notes and Learnings” (as per the client’s instructions).
• File signatures for XLSX, DOCX, and PNG were cross-checked against the directory list to make sure nothing was skipped.

Step 4: Verification

• Before delivery, the client virtually verified every recovered file. No spreadsheets reported corruption, and image preview thumbnails rendered correctly.
• Over 97% of client-marked critical files were byte-perfect; the rest suffered minor damage limited to thumbnail data, not content.

Data Delivery

Stellar delivered 152 GB of verified data on a new 1 TB USB 3.2 external SSD encrypted with BitLocker To Go. The client also received:

• A health report on the failed NVMe drive
• Advice on regular image backups and firmware updates
• Step-by-step instructions for storing BitLocker keys in a Microsoft account

Customer Feedback

“Stellar rescued every project file we feared was lost. Your clear communication and quick action helped us meet our audit deadline.”

— Project Manager, Insurance Services Firm (name withheld on request)

Another five-star rating was later added to Google Reviews!

Outcome

• Business continuity preserved: audit proceeded on schedule.
• Zero data loss in priority folders.
• Root cause identified as NAND wear; client now moves active work to a higher-endurance drive.

Lost data on an SSD, hard drive, or RAID? Contact Stellar Data Recovery for a free consultation and a no-obligation quote.

Key Takeaways

• Clone before you explore. Imaging an ailing SSD first avoids making its state worse.
• With the correct key and controlled tools, BitLocker-protected drives can be fully recovered.
• Health warnings matter. Early S.M.A.R.T. alerts often flag issues weeks to months before drives fail outright.

You can also check our recent case studies on data recovery from multiple encrypted devices

• BitLocker Encryption: 3 TB of crucial data recovered for an electronic design & manufacturing company
• Formatted & Crashed HDD: Data recovered from an encrypted and physically damaged hard drive
• FileVault Encryption: 400 GB recovered from an erased and FileVault-encrypted MacBook® SSD
• EFS Encryption: Data recovered from an EFS-encrypted NVMe SSD (Simmtronics) for a leading biomedical manufacturer