Lenovo T500 SSD not working in external case, burned or technical issue?

My T500 died suddenly so I got the SSD out to retrieve my data and put it in an external case made for SSD cards. When connected to a PC it does not recognise the disc or allow access. It seems to recognise the controler that came with the case as it allows me to remove it safely but if I go through control pannel, troubleshoot it does not show the size of the disc or anything else to indicate that it recognises it.

Some people I asked said it is burned but some say it may be that a boot partition on the SSD cannot be read.

I am very worried and any help would be appreciated!

 

Too simple, but is the SSD formatted? (I was surprised when I received my SSD that I had to manually format it before it could be recognized - I expected it to be ready-to-go)

 

I cannot remember to be honest, I got the laptop 2 years ago. If it told me to format it from some pop up menu I would have if it did not I would not have. I do not remember doing that.

 

Okay if it doesn't recognize it sounds like the file system might be hosed. Try a Linux boot disc and repairing the file system.

 

what brand / model SSD are we talking about here?   is this a 1.8" SSD inside a 2.5" adapter?   if so, do you know with 100% certainty that your external adapter is passing +3.3V to the drive or is it +5V only?

regarding your dead T500, will it boot without a drive in it?   if so does it show an error at POST saying the drive or OS is missing?

 

"Some people I asked said it is burned but some say it may be that a boot partition on the SSD cannot be read."

There is no such thing as a "boot partition."

Renee

 

Would you like to elaborate on that?

 

Thank you 'antskip', 'Tsunade Hime', 'eric', 'Renee' and 'Halobox'. When someones laptop dies it is a massive dissaster and your help is appreciated.

Regarding your questions:

'what brand / model SSD are we talking about here? is this a 1.8" SSD inside a 2.5" adapter? if so, do you know with 100% certainty that your external adapter is passing +3.3V to the drive or is it +5V only?'

I am not sure where you are going with this but the SSD is a Samsung MLC SSD DC+3.3V and it has an additional adaptor on the end so it may be a '1.8 inside a 2.5'. The case is an Akasa Noir +5V from USB. Is that a problem?

'regarding your dead T500, will it boot without a drive in it? if so does it show an error at POST saying the drive or OS is missing?'

Thank you, your help is appreciated!

The charging light does not even come on never mind booting.

 

Ok, I will.

There's nothing wrong with using the term boot partition. It's a term in common usage. One of the reasons is because of the way Windows 7 displays volumes (partitions) on a disk.

In the attached pic, you see two partitions. One marked as system (100MB) and the other marked as boot (the remainder of the 160GB SSD).

Windows likes to have at least a 100MB system partition to store some critical files needed for startup. On the system partition is the BCD store. This configuration data points to the files needed to run (boot) Windows 7.

The boot partition and files can be encrypted with BitLocker. The system partition cannot.

So when it comes to having a machine failure, sandboxing the problem can be complex. Thankfully many problems are easily fixed with the Windows 7 DVD using the recovery and diagnostic tools. I would highly recommend using it to check the integrity of the drive, partitions, and the required files.

 

Top Cat 2,

You have two sets of problems that should be triaged separately.

Regarding the use of the SSD in an enclosure and not being recognized by the system you are plugging it into, this sounds like a power issue. Is the enclosure case being powered by a USB connection or does it have it's own power source? Are you confident the machine you are connecting it to supports the SATA II interface speeds? Are you confident the enclosure supports SATA II interface speeds?

As for the T500, if you pop a standard hard drive in the primary storage bay and press the power button only to see nothing, you have a more serious problem. I would remove the battery and try to boot. I would change the 90W power adaptor if you have another and try to boot. If those all fail, it's time to have it serviced. Prolly a motherboard issue.