Crucial data recovery We get it back.
Whether a portable X10, an MX500 in a desktop or an NVMe SSD in a laptop: we recover data from faulty Crucial drives — in our own lab in Frankfurt, with a diagnosis before the recovery and your approval before anything happens.
- In-house clean room
- Never outsourced
- Our lab
- Transparent & fair
Memory of its own making, controllers from many
Crucial is the consumer brand of Micron, one of the few companies worldwide that manufacture flash memory themselves. The controllers, by contrast, come from Silicon Motion, Phison, Marvell or in-house development, depending on the series. For data recovery that is exactly the decisive question: which controller sits in the drive — and does it encrypt what it stores?
Crucial
Whether logical or physical — in most cases the memory is still intact. The diagnosis shows what exactly is wrong.
Portable SSD not recognised
X10, X9 or X6 no longer registers, disappears while copying or shows the wrong size — usually the electronics or the internal administration, rarely the memory.
Controller & firmware
MX500, BX500 or P3 no longer appear in the BIOS, or appear under an unfamiliar name: the controller can no longer find its own administration.
Deleted or formatted
Deleted or formatted by accident — with many controllers we recover the files even after TRIM. Disconnect the drive immediately.
Drop, port, short circuit
Snapped USB-C port, drop damage or overvoltage — the board is repaired under the microscope.
From symptom to cause.
Nobody searches for a fault pattern. You hear a noise or read a message — and the most pressing question is: may I switch the device on one more time?
Symptom
Portable Crucial SSD keeps disconnecting and reconnecting
Likely cause
First rule out the cable and the port. If it persists, the controller usually drops out as soon as it accesses damaged administrative data.
What to do now
Try once with a different cable directly on the computer. If that does not help: do not keep plugging it in.
Symptom
Reports 0 bytes, the wrong size or a technical identifier instead of “Crucial”
Likely cause
The controller has fallen into an emergency mode because it cannot load its firmware or translation table. The memory content is as a rule still there.
What to do now
Do not initialise, do not format, no firmware update via Storage Executive.
Symptom
MX500 or BX500 no longer recognised after a power cut
Likely cause
An interrupted write operation in the internal administration, or a damaged component in the power supply.
What to do now
Do not switch on repeatedly. Computer off, send the drive in.
Symptom
P3, P5 Plus or T700 disappears mid-operation
Likely cause
NVMe drives in M.2 format are under heavy thermal stress. If the controller signs off and does not come back, there is usually a firmware or electronics fault.
What to do now
Shut down. Do not “test” the drive in a USB enclosure.
Symptom
Storage Executive reports low remaining life or read errors
Likely cause
Worn memory cells; the supply of spare cells is running out.
What to do now
Copy only the most important files once to another drive — no check, no benchmark. Stop at read errors.
Symptom
Files deleted, the drive runs normally
Likely cause
The data is usually still in memory. However, the controller gradually clears deleted areas in the background as soon as the drive has power.
What to do now
Disconnect or switch off immediately. Do not “just have a quick look”.
Why this takes so much effort.
No jargon for its own sake — the reasons from which price, duration and prospects of success follow.
Portable SSDs: no drive inside the enclosure
Some portable SSDs contain an ordinary M.2 SSD behind a USB bridge chip. Not the X6, X9 Pro, X10 and X10 Pro: there a single controller speaks USB directly, and memory and port sit on the same board. Unscrewing it and plugging the SSD in elsewhere therefore does not work — there is nothing to plug in. Access always goes through exactly this controller.
Encryption from the factory
Several Crucial drives encrypt everything they store without anyone setting anything up — among them the MX500 and parts of the BX500 series. The X10 Pro additionally offers password protection based on AES-256 hardware encryption. The consequence for data recovery: desoldering the memory chips yields nothing but ciphertext. The route goes through the original electronics and, where a password is set, through that password.
Micron in the laptop
Many laptops ship with SSDs labelled Micron, such as the 2400 or 2450 in the short M.2 format. Technically these are relatives of the Crucial drives — with one particularity: on manufacturer laptops, encryption via BitLocker or Windows device encryption is often already active. Without the recovery key every recovery ends at this point; that is why we clarify the key question before approval.
Withdrawal from the consumer business
In December 2025 Micron announced that it would give up its consumer business under the Crucial brand; shipments continued until the end of February 2026. The warranty remains in place. For data recovery this makes no difference, as it works without the manufacturer. Another consequence matters: a warranty claim replaces the device or refunds the purchase price — it does not get your data back.
Crucial series we work on.
Details for your storage medium.
Portable SSDs (USB)
Crucial X10, X10 Pro, X9, X9 Pro, X8, X6
NVMe SSDs (M.2)
Crucial P1, P2, P3, P3 Plus, P5, P5 Plus, P310, P510, T500, T700, T705
SATA SSDs
Crucial MX500, MX300, MX200, MX100, BX500, BX300, BX100, M550, M500, M4, C400, C300, M225, V4
Micron OEM (laptops & PCs)
Micron 2200, 2210, 2300, 2400, 2450, 2550, 3400, 1100, 1300
An illustrative selection, not an exhaustive list. Whether and how a recovery succeeds depends on the controller and the fault pattern, not on the model number — we also work on Crucial and Micron drives not named here.
Before you do anything.
Bring the medium in or send it to us. The Economy diagnosis is free — you find out what is possible before anything costs money.
Take the medium out of service immediately — every further use can accelerate the loss.
No recovery attempts with tools from the internet.
Do not open the device or medium yourself.
Take it to a reliable data recovery specialist — analysis first, then a quote.
The mistakes that make it expensive.
Almost every well-meant reflex makes the damage worse. That is why you find not only the rule here but also the reason — nobody follows an instruction without one.
No firmware update via Storage Executive if the drive already reports itself incorrectly.
The update writes into exactly the area that is damaged. Afterwards there is often less to recover than before.
Do not send it in under warranty before the data has been secured.
In a warranty case the device is exchanged or the purchase price refunded. You do not get the old drive with your data back.
Do not prise open a portable SSD.
Inside there is no removable SSD, only a board. Opening it easily damages components or solder joints.
No sanitize, no secure erase and no reset.
These functions discard the internal key. Afterwards the content is technically still present and unreadable for good.
Do not format when Windows or macOS prompts you to.
The message only means the file system cannot be read — not that the drive is empty.
Prices follow the medium.
What a recovery costs depends on the medium and its fault pattern, not on the brand. You will therefore find the prices on the page for the medium itself.
SSD
We recover data from logically and physically damaged SSDs of all kinds — using techniques that go far beyond ordinary data recovery software.
Prices
Mac & PC
A computer that no longer starts is not a computer with lost data. In most cases the storage is untouched — nobody can simply reach it any more.
Prices
Encrypted drives
Encryption protects your data from us as well. That is not a shortcoming but the point of it. For a data recovery it means: we bring the hardware back, you bring the key.
Prices
Our diagnostic tariffs.
You set the pace. Shipping both ways is included in every tariff — from Standard upwards we collect from you. And you always get a written quote before we start the recovery.
Economy
0 €
free diagnosis
- Diagnosis
- approx. 5 working days
- After approval
- Regular queue
- Updates
- By email
Written quote · free shipping both ways
Standard
99 €
incl. VAT · per medium
- Diagnosis
- within 2 working days
- After approval
- Scheduled with priority
- Updates
- Email and phone call
Written quote · free collection and return
Emergency
249 €
incl. VAT · per medium
- Diagnosis
- next working day
- After approval
- Moved to the front
- Updates
- Named contact
Written quote · express collection and return. Arrives before 12 noon: diagnosis the same working day.
The Economy diagnosis is free of charge. With Standard and Emergency the diagnostic fee applies even if you decline the quote — it is not offset against a later recovery. Either way, you decide freely after the quote whether we continue.
Four steps to your data.
- 01
Send it in or drop it off
Order online or hand it in without an appointment in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen.
- 02
Diagnosis
We examine the medium and send you a written quote.
- 03
Approval & recovery
We only begin the recovery once you have approved it.
- 04
Your data back
On a storage medium in the parcel or via an encrypted cloud download.
Answered briefly.
What does data recovery cost?
We work with transparent fixed prices based on the fault pattern — depending on the medium from €99, €299 or €499; in cases of total damage individually. Before every recovery you receive a written quote and decide freely whether we continue.
Do I pay even if no data is recovered?
The Economy diagnosis is free — if you decline afterwards, no costs arise. With Standard and Emergency the diagnostic fee (€99 or €249) applies even if you decline; it is not offset against a later recovery. The recovery itself is only charged after your approval.
How long does it take?
Depending on the tariff, the diagnosis takes about 5 working days (Economy), 2 working days (Standard) or one working day (Emergency) — with Emergency, the same working day if the medium arrives before 12 noon. How long the recovery itself takes depends on the fault pattern and is stated in the quote.
Is my data safe with you?
Yes. We work in line with the GDPR, pass nothing on to third parties and never outsource. Your data is stored exclusively on our encrypted server and completely deleted after handover.
Can I send the medium in?
Yes. Shipping both ways is included in every diagnosis tariff; with Standard and Emergency we collect the medium from you. Or you come to our lab in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen without an appointment.
My Crucial MX500 no longer shows up in the BIOS. Is the data gone?
Usually not. A drive that no longer appears at all generally has a fault in its electronics or firmware; the memory is unaffected by it. Because the MX500 encrypts from the factory, the original electronics have to be brought back to work — desoldering the memory chips does not help here.
Can I unscrew my Crucial X10 and connect the SSD directly?
No. The X10 does not contain an M.2 SSD but a single board whose controller speaks USB directly. There is nothing to plug in elsewhere, and opening it easily damages something. Send the device in unopened.
Crucial has withdrawn from the consumer market. Can I still get my data back?
Yes, that does not depend on the manufacturer. Data recovery works without Crucial and without Micron. The warranty remains in place, but it only replaces the device, not the data.
Data Recovery Professionals
A worldwide group of independent, owner-run data recovery companies. Members share methods from professional data recovery, forensics and software development — so on rare damage patterns the knowledge of the whole group stands behind your medium.
Every hour counts. Let us talk.
Bring the medium in or send it to us. The Economy diagnosis is free of charge.
Wasserweg 8–10 · 60594 Frankfurt am Main