Aspire S7-391: Corrupt MSATA SSD

JamesStam

Good afternoon all,
I have an Acer Aspire S7 (391 variant) which recently ran into some problems.
To cut a long story short, the Windows 10 updates failed a number of times which then led me (the long way round) to booting from USB and trying to re-install windows.
Again, this failed, hanging at various points of installation.

I have two questions:
1. Can the MSATA SSD be replaced with a generic MSATA SSD, or does it have to be the unique Acer type?

2. Any ideas how to recover the data from the corrupt SSD? I've put it into a USB reader but Windows can't read it. An expert over on Tom's Hardware Forums showed me an article he wrote explaning that the Acer S7 MSATA SSDs are unique in that they are actually 2 x 64gb units bridged together.

Many thanks in advance.
James

JackE

>>>To cut a long story short, the Windows 10 updates failed a number of times which then led me (the long way round) to booting from USB and trying to re-install windows.>>>

Was this an ACER-flavored Win10 stick or a Microsoft-generic Win10? If the latter, remove all sticks, press and hold the power button for 5 seconds or until the machine completely shuts off. Then turn it back on and immediately press and hold the ALT key while tapping the F10 key. A recovery screen should appear if the hidden ACER recovery partition is still intact. Follow directions as in the video below for re-installing Win10 to a factory state while saving your personal files. Jack E/NJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzLJRAZldA