Samsung PM981 SSD Data Recovery
At Zero Alpha Data Recovery, we offer professional data recovery for Samsung PM981 SSDs. This high-performance OEM NVMe drive is commonly used in laptops from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and ASUS. Despite its speed, the PM981 is known to suffer from sudden failures, firmware bugs, and controller issues that can make data inaccessible. If your PM981 is no longer recognised or has crashed, we can help. We also accept mail-in jobs Australia-wide, so you can send your drive to us from anywhere.
Samsung PM981 SSD Common Problems
- SSD not detected in BIOS or Windows
- Drive shows 0MB or incorrect capacity
- Sudden data loss or corrupted partitions
- Freezing or extremely slow performance
- Controller or firmware failure (Phoenix-based)
- Partition becomes RAW or missing
- Drive stuck in read-only mode
- Power-related damage or surge failure
- BSOD or crash when accessing the drive
- NVMe not recognised after BIOS update or sleep mode
Samsung MZ-VLB5120 M.2 SSD Data Recovery Caselog
14Feb23: Doesn't detect. Damaged microchip. Removed fuse out of circuit. VDD main shorted to ground. Originally suspected RB990 WSON10 on-resistance load switch, but found a capacitor with obvious discolouration to anode to be the issue. Fuse put back in circuit and data recovered.
PM981 NVMe SSD Samsung 1024GB Data Recovery Caselog
12Jan26: The customer brought in a Dell laptop for data recovery with this SSD inside. On boot it displayed “no bootable device found”. Controller: Samsung S4LR020 S6C9AM06 (Phoenix). A former employee deliberately erased all data by entering the Dell BIOS, selecting Maintenance → Data Wipe. This crypto-erased the SSD, zero-filling all data. As of this time, data cannot be recovered from this type of security erasure.
Samsung PM981a MZ-VL8512B Data Recovery Caselog
19Jan26: This samsung PM981a MZ-VL8512B SSD was removed from a Predator Helios 300 N20C3 laptop which suddenly died during use and would not power on. We removed the SSD to recover the data including documents and photos.