Lenovo Legion laptops are widely used by professionals and educators, including teachers, for handling lesson plans, student records, and administrative work. However, when an SSD fails suddenly without warning, it often indicates NAND chip failure, power regulation issues, or controller corruption, making stored data inaccessible.
This case study details how we successfully recovered critical teaching materials and documents for a grammar school teacher in Glasgow from a Crucial SSD inside a Lenovo Legion laptop, after the SSD stopped responding completely.
As Glasgow Data Recovery, Scotland’s oldest and best data recovery company, we have 25 years of experience using chip-off NAND recovery, firmware repair, and forensic data extraction techniques to restore lost files.
The Challenge: Crucial SSD Not Detected & Failing Without Warning
A teacher from a local grammar school contacted us after their Lenovo Legion laptop stopped detecting the SSD, with the following issues:
- The laptop failed to boot, displaying a “No Bootable Device” error.
- BIOS did not detect the Crucial SSD.
- Attempts to connect the SSD to another system via USB adapters failed.
- The drive contained essential lesson plans, student records, and coursework materials.
Since continued use of a failing SSD can cause permanent data loss, an immediate professional recovery solution was required.
Diagnosis & Evaluation
When the Crucial SSD arrived at our cleanroom facility, we conducted a full hardware and NAND memory diagnostic. Our findings:
- SSD controller failure – Preventing communication between the NAND memory and the system.
- No physical damage to the NAND chips – Increasing the likelihood of successful data recovery.
- Power regulation failure – The SSD was not receiving stable power, preventing initialization.
Since controller failure prevents SSDs from being recognised, we prioritized chip-level NAND recovery and firmware repair.
The Recovery Process
1. Cleanroom SSD Disassembly & PCB Repair
To restore access to the SSD, we:
- Opened the SSD in our cleanroom.
- Tested and repaired power regulation circuits to stabilize voltage flow.
- Bypassed the faulty controller using specialized SSD recovery tools.
2. Extracting Data Using Chip-Off NAND Recovery
Since the SSD controller was non-functional, we:
- Removed the NAND flash memory chips from the SSD PCB.
- Used specialized NAND chip readers to extract raw data.
- Rebuilt the SSD’s file structure manually to restore missing documents.
3. Extracting & Verifying Teaching Materials
Once the SSD data was extracted, we:
- Recovered all lesson plans, student records, and administrative documents.
- Restored Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs.
- Transferred the fully restored data to a secure external backup device.
The Results: 100% Data Recovery Success
Thanks to our chip-off NAND extraction and SSD PCB repair techniques, we successfully recovered 100% of the teacher’s lost files, including:
✅ Lesson plans, student records, and coursework materials
✅ Teaching resources, PowerPoint presentations, and worksheets
✅ Organized file structures restored for easy access
The teacher was able to retrieve all critical files, preventing academic setbacks and the loss of years of teaching materials.
Why Choose Us?
With 25 years of experience and tens of thousands of successful SSD recoveries, we are Scotland’s leading SSD data recovery specialists. Our expertise includes:
✔ Crucial SSD chip-off NAND flash memory recovery
✔ Firmware repair & controller failure data extraction
✔ Teaching materials, lesson plan, and student data retrieval
✔ Secure & confidential SSD data recovery services
If your SSD is not detected, failing without warning, or preventing access to important teaching files, stop using it immediately and contact us for expert SSD data recovery.