Recovering data from a broken SSD 320

[JAtki2]

Hi, I am navigating a world about which I know nothing, so I apologise if I am asking the wrong people. I have a Toshiba laptop computer and last week the Intel SSD 320 in it when "pffff" and stopped working. We sent it to Kurt, a local Hungarian company which are expert in disk recovery, and they say because of hardware encryption in the SSD, it is impossible to recover data on the disk...

Since I have some important files on it (and the back up Samsung hard disk I had also broke and then accidentally got sent for recycling!) I would dearly love to know if there is any chance of recovering the data on the disk. Is there an amazingly brainy guy somewhere who can do the trick? Might technology change one day in the future to make this possible? Any help or suggestions would be gratefully received.

Yes, I do know about backing up and storing things on the cloud ... now.

Best wishes,

James Atkins

[Jose_H_Intel1]

Hello James,

I am sorry you encountered this issue with your Intel® SSD 320 Series.

It depends if you had enabled the hardware encryption with a SATA/HDD password in BIOS.

If you did so, then I am afraid it is impossible to recover the data. If you did not, you may try with another data recovery company that has a partnership with Intel; so, the warranty will not be voided.

http://software.intel.com/partner/search-detail?companyguid=80ade2e2-0a7d-e111-a1da-001a4b33b648 http://software.intel.com/partner/search-detail?companyguid=80ade2e2-0a7d-e111-a1da-001a4b33b648

http://software.intel.com/partner/search-detail?companyguid=1f3707f6-b3bc-e111-ab57-001a4b33b648 http://software.intel.com/partner/search-detail?companyguid=1f3707f6-b3bc-e111-ab57-001a4b33b648

NOTE: These links are being offered for your convenience and should not be viewed as an endorsement by Intel of the content, products, or services offered there.

[JAtki2]

Dear Joe, thanks a lot for getting back.

If I could take a few moments more of your time.

I did not knowingly enable the hardware encryption, but I suspect that someone must have done (manufacturer? reseller?), because the Hungarian disk-recovery company I mentioned, Kurt, (http://kurt-security.com/ KÜRT &# 8211; Data Recovery and Information Security) referred to this term of hardware encryption.

By "impossible", do you mean theoretically impossible (I mean, like a square with no corners), or practically impossible, like it would take all the worlds computer power for the next 5,000 years, or ... like technically impossible, in that today we don't have the machine but you could imagine one that could recover the data?

I was wondering if it is possible to extract the encrypted data from the drive and hold it elsewhere?

Talking to a friend who is fairly knowledgeable on encryption theory, he said that if you know what is on the disk in some detail, then it makes the decoding job an order of magnitude easier. As I have copies of about a third of the content, I guess someone at GCHQ / CIA level would be able to crack it.

Any thoughts?

Best wishes,

James

[Jose_H_Intel1]

All I can say is that the encryption for this drive is AES 128-bit.

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-specifications/ssd-320-specifica... http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-specifications/ssd-320-specifica...