Case Study
Kingston M.2 NVMe SSD Firmware Recovery for a Wealth Management Firm
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An Overview of the Case
A leading wealth management firm with a large client base started a routine upgrade to Windows 11 25H2. Partway through, the system got stuck in a reboot loop. The IT team investigated and found that the SSD had disappeared from the operating system. The drive responded in Ready Mode, but it displayed the wrong model number and returned only garbage sectors instead of usable data. An operating system recovery attempt did not help. This left the firm without access to its sensitive client portfolios, transaction histories, and internal reports.
Client's Story
After the upgrade failed, the client found that none of the files on the drive could be opened. The SSD still reached a ready state, which made the case unusual, yet no stored data could be accessed. Given the sensitivity of the information, the client did not want to risk further in-house recovery attempts. The firm then approached the Stellar Data Recovery Mumbai service centre for help.
Business Impact
For a wealth management firm, client and portfolio data drives daily business. Losing access to it put client trust at stake and raised concerns about regulatory compliance. Every day without investment records and transaction data threatened to disrupt client engagements. It also put reporting obligations at risk. A fast and secure recovery was a priority from the start.
Media Specifications
| Media Type | M.2 NVMe SSD |
|---|---|
| Brand | Kingston |
| Storage Capacity | 250 GB |
| Issue | Firmware corruption |
| Data at Stake | Client portfolios, transaction histories, and internal reports |
Complexity of the Case
The inspection showed that the damage went beyond a single fault. Three separate problems were found inside the drive.
- The firmware that controls the drive was corrupted
- The encryption component that protects the stored data was damaged
- The component that maps where data is stored had developed bad sectors
The drive still responded in Ready Mode, but none of its data could be read. The data was also encrypted with BitLocker, which added one more step before the files could be used.
Data Recovery Approach
After a phone consultation, the client submitted the drive to Stellar Data Recovery. The Engineering and Innovation team followed a five-step process.
1. Media Inspection
The team began with a detailed inspection. The SSD was found in Ready Mode, but it reported an incorrect model number and returned garbage sectors instead of valid user data. The inspection report outlined the three challenges described earlier, and these guided the choice of recovery approach.
2. Analysis of the M.2 SSD
Next, the team placed the SSD in Safe Mode. This provided direct access to the firmware Service Area and bypassed the faulty ready-state behaviour of the drive. The encryption and translator modules were then analysed to pinpoint the corrupted components behind the failure.
3. Firmware Area Examination
Once the Translator Module was accessed, the drive could be brought back to a ready state. User data still could not be read, as the encryption metadata was also corrupted.
4. Virtual Translator Build
The damaged translation layer could no longer be relied on to read the data. To address this, the experts built a virtual translator from the unique firmware bytes of the SSD and paired it with a virtual translation algorithm. Stellar proprietary software then provided access to the bad blocks.
5. Cloning and Data Decryption
With the virtual translation in place, a sector-by-sector clone of the drive was created on a healthy donor drive. The data was encrypted with BitLocker using AES-256. The client provided the 48-digit BitLocker recovery key, and the cloned data was decrypted successfully. This allowed the data to be read correctly without relying on the original drive's faulty translation layer.
This specialised SSD data recovery process helped restore access to the encrypted data despite the SSD’s damaged firmware and translation layer.
Result
Stellar recovered 100% of the data from the M.2 SSD that the operating system no longer detected due to firmware corruption. The data was restored to a usable state, which allowed the firm to resume its projects and complete deliveries within the planned timeframe. The recovery was also completed within the estimated turnaround time, which avoided further disruption.
Explore more real-world SSD data recovery cases to see how Stellar handled complex failures involving encryption, firmware corruption, TRIM, and damaged or non-detected SSDs.
Statement from the customer:
"Our SSD stopped showing up in the middle of a Windows upgrade, and the system kept restarting. The drive contained client portfolios and transaction histories, which made a failed attempt a risk we could not take. Stellar understood the urgency from the first call and gave us clear updates at every stage until the drive was back in our hands. Having all our data returned complete and ready to use was a huge relief for the entire firm."
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