HDDs were much easier to deal with in that regards. Use any recommended tool, they basically all do the same but as you were using an SSD your chances are slim anyway, at least without spending a considerable amount of time and work into manually reconstructing pieces of files or alternatively pay someone to do it for you.

but anyway, the guy accidentally deleted his files, no physical damage was done, so what he needs to do is mount it as read only, image it (full 1:1/sector-by-sector copy, nothing else!) and then you can either work with the image or the drive itself. This only makes sense if there is a problem with the hard disk controller (-> the PCB between your connector and the actual medium/data carrier, heads and so on) because our systems don't really know how to handle interrupt issues on HDD interfaces, but USB on the other hand is very forgivable and in some cases can even bypass some of the controllers jobs. Its not free, it costs 79, but its extremely. Using an external interface like a USB to SATA one as suggested here is also unnecessary and won't change anything. If Recuva (which is free, btw) doesnt work, there is a more powerful, albeit slower program called GetDataBack. Mounting it as read only is totally fine and won't destroy anything that's not already gone.

Alright because everyone is screaming 'DO NOT USE YOUR DRIVE!!1' - the truth would be, you should avoid writing to your drive.

Recuva alternative reddit