SSD failure...you're kidding me...

I have never had an SSD hard drive fail before...that is before today. But it did. It was a Kingston 248GB SSD 2.5" in SATA format. How crazy is that. I thought these things were bulletproof.

To make matters worse, it was my primary drive in my desktop computer. It had all the latest and greatest files...which is fine as I had them all backup anyways.

But to have a non-mechanical, no parts drive fail...weird.

I had left the computer running, windows open to the desktop as I always do...with the shutdown/screen saver disabled. Just my desktop open and waiting for me to come back to life...

I came back to my computer, wiggled the mouse, and then poof...black screen. Computer rebooted with the warning of not finding a bootable disk. Had to go out and buy a new SSD. Took the old one and put it in an external case, can't even get it recognized, to run, anything...totally shot.

I love my XP for old time simple use and compatibility. I like Activesync and all the other old programs I have...MSCEINF, WinCE Cab Manager, the Windows registry editor for handhelds via Activesync...etc. A bunch of other things I have that don't want to play nice with the newer Windows operating systems...

And while I used the Oracle Virtual PC to run XP in virtual mode (didn't like Hyper-V as it didn't support USB)...with my old Core 2Duo processor...it was not the fastest speed demon out there.

There are a lot of ways to run dual or multiple operating systems on a computer. And I've tried them all at one time or another.

For instance...2 hard drives hooked up to my motherboard, and selecting the boot drive with the press of F10 letting the bios make the selection. Which ever I select, then that OS is loaded. Actually did the same thing with a SATA switch. Mechanical thing that lets me turn a drive on and off...thus selecting the boot drive. They say those things save your hard drive and power...for me they were a pain in the butt having to reach behind my computer to push a button to change the active drive.

Of course the VM thing is pretty popular way of doing things...nice to operate from a single desktop and use a shared folder.

Right now I decided to just reinstall Windows 10 to the new SSD. I have my Win10 configured the way I like...removed all the bloat...removed all the forced upgrades and Edge, have just the basic OS with low overhead. So I partitioned my new SSD and installed Win10 on my primary and XP on the secondary parition. When my computer boots I simply select which parition I want to boot from. Of course you have to fix the XP from overwriting the bootsector of the hard drive locking you out of the newer OS. But EasyBCD fixes that easily.

I'm thinking that I'll probably keep using this method as it is the simplest of them all.

Luckily I use my old Norton Ghost to image my hard drives. I mean it is really old, but it is always reliable and makes perfect images. And I have it installed on a BartPE CD so it is just a matter of booting from the CD, running Ghost, and reimaging the drive when I want. Sure beats having to install XP with the service packs and all my software I want...even if I were to slipstream the files into the XP CD...this is actually quicker I think and easier.

Anyways...I am ranting and raving right now using my new 500GB SSD...staring at disbelief that my old one failed...how crazy is that...

Oh by the way, I use a Sunix 039G9N pci serial card that has drivers for Win10 and XP. So for my old handhelds I can Activesync my 770 and I don't get any device manager errors/alerts regardless of which OS I am using. Amazing how many newer computers these days don't even have serial ports. And those USB to DB9 thingies are hit and miss sometimes too.

Okay...time to go get another beer...could you tell?

Love the rant!!! Maybe it was one of those many UFO's in the news lately... dumping their intergalactic cosmic beam waste "accidently" in your direction... I'm pretty sure SSD's are very sensitive to that kind of thing (well, that and "porn" which judging from your signature motto could not possibly apply here) you really should sue them. I'll see if I can reach "Nordon and his ilk" with my specially modified LED pointer flashlight the next time they fly over!!

It at times like this that we all need to be strong and not fall into that "Life's a bitch and then you die" sand trap. Tiger might concur.

Anyway, hope this brings you a laugh,in spite of the travail.

joval

posted from his sidekick J720/RazzPi contraption!

Edited by joval 2021-05-19 6:48 PM

ok,seriously... a few years ago I had a miniSSD ( a wide gum-stick type)
60Gb drive fail in similar fashion. Some how I later brought it back from the dead although the files were lost... it's been working fine since. if I remember what I did I'll post it.

Hey, thanks for the virtual machine info... may inspire me to set one up!

joval

Rich, thank you I enjoyed reading this and it has reminded me to do a new backup since its been a while!

I tried the VM thing but just prefer old hardware...

SSDs seem rock solid, right up until they absolutely aren't.
Spinning disks get me mildly nervous, and there are a bunch of obvious ways for them to fail (I have lost like three disks due to fall damage, haha)... but SSDs get me terribly nervous despite their generally higher reliability since you really just have no idea of what could have gone wrong.
I always find myself wondering if I'm going to hit the SSD write count limit too, even if it's probably still upwards of 5 years of heavy, heavy use away.

Backup, backup, backup.
I probably should get to doing that, haha. At least, I should probably set up some kind of automated backup system vs my haphazard "plug in an external and copy %homepath% to d:\backups\ every once in a blue moon" method.

null1024,
You can poll the SMART data on the drive to get the write stats. Manufacturer utilities like Samsung Magician will also tell you.

Rich,

Pop the case open on the SSD. The main reason in my experience that they go isn't because of the TWPD limit but either because they cooked themselves or because a cap/resistor failed. It should be fairly obvious if it boiled an IC. After that it is probably bad solder and if you're desperate to try a few minutes with a heat gun or in a (non domestic because you'll ruin it) oven could be enough to re-flow it.

A gutting experience though. At least you had backups!

I can't believe you are still using a Core 2. That must act like a space heater. Those last gen 6000 and 8000's were hardly energy efficient. What is the rest of your spec?

I wouldn't say it "boiled" the IC, but something certainly did happen to it to make it nonoperative. Looking at it under a powerful magnifier I can see nothing obvious. All the components look fine. No signs of blistering anywhere, no bad solder joints, no nothing....it just doesn't work.

And yes I'm still running core 2. An old E6600 running at 2.4 GHz. It's an old computer after all. But again no in the space heater department. I mean the BTX motherboard design really did make a difference, and then add the whopping 350kg heat sink they put on it (maybe not quite 350kg) with the chassis fan, and it is actually super quiet and cool.

Old computers for old guys...still… how many of you have dual slot feed DVD/RWs with Lightscribe capability in a single 5.25" bay? Plus a 1.44 FDD/card reader combo in a 3.5" bay? Plus a PCMCIA card receiver in the other 5.25" bay? Finally I still have an open 3.5" bay for…something…

I have a pci-e USB 3.0 card in the back… but it's a pain to reach behind the tower to use it. Maybe I'll put a front USB 3.0 hub in that one.

Yeah…I'm not the speediest kid on the block… kind of like my experience with women… but like with women, I can accomodate just about anything…

Does the drive show up at all when you plug it in say using a usb drive caddy?? Does it show up with the mini-partition tool as a drive... maybe it just lost/needs a drive letter assigned to it. If you had your data backed up, have you tried re-formatting it/ scan for repair. Or is it just completely dead and lifeless? ( I refer to as the "Bill Gates floppy drive anomaly" Have you searched online for that model/brand name and known issues or fixes?

My 2 cents worth!

joval

on my J720/Devuan/RasPi/Firefox Hybrid

Edited by joval 2021-05-24 6:48 PM

All good thoughts...alas all failures. Tried all of them too...put drive in external USB enclosure...not recognized by OS at all, tried all the SSD ram utilities...even low level formatting...no device stops me cold. No power light on motherboard where there used to be one. Even tried putting 12+/5+ volts directly to other contact points on the pcb...nothing...it is simply in SSD heaven...or hell...which is where it deserves to be.

Not a big deal as I routinely backup all my storage drives...so really nothing was lost. Just thought it strange that an SSD device would fail while I have old 3.5" 40GB hard drives that are decades old still running...

i think we need to see a photo of this Frankenstein's monstrocityer

I've posted multiple pictures here of my desktop over the years…it just keeps getting crazier every year.

This year I bought a Gateway E4610D case for $35 delivered. I had the E4610S slim case before. I just moved everything from the smaller case to the full size tower. When I moved the pcmcia receiver I painted it flat black to match… it looks great.









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modern cheap / regular SSDs have a write life cycle of about 150TB. (called TBW)

It said in a magazine that as HDD / SSD mining is getting popular due to GPU shortage, SSD is considered a consumable item. The HDD / SSD mining wears SSDs very fast. They use HDD to write large data for the HDD / SDD mining.

Related URL:
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/chia-cryptocurrency-comes-for-the-hard-drive/

Edited by stingraze 2021-05-28 3:38 AM

A real floppy drive !!! So THAT is what led to Bill and Melinda's divorce???

joval