New SSD Won't Work

[MikeTyson]

Hi Guys,

Just bought a Crucial CT064M4Solid State Drive 2 64GB M4 from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT06...1092069&sr=8-2

It arrived today, and I've just got home from work and plugged it in...

When booting up the Windows 7 install disc, I am presented with the following:



Seems normal, so I select the first option, and when it's loading up the first screen that says Windows is loading files... it freezes on this point for about 30 seconds:



And then this screen appears:



For those of you who remember me, I've never had anything go right with a computer, ever... and stupidly enough I expected this to actually work. Silly me.

I have no idea what's wrong, and as far as I can see from forums people with my mobo can happily use SSDs despite the fact my mobo does not support AHCI and neither do theirs, but theirs work and obviously because it's me... mine doesn't.

I've already tried swapping the SATA ports around for the DVD drive and the SSD, but same thing happens.

Does anybody have any ideas on what it could be? I'm really, for want of a better word, fucked off that I've spent nearly £100 and it doesn't even work... when it's nothing more than a new hard drive which is such a simple component

Any ideas?

Many thanks, from a very annoyed Mike Tyson

P.S. the disc itself is detected in BIOS and appears in the boot menu

[Daimus]

Many people complain of similar problem. Try to update firmware to version 0009.
http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

[freaksavior]

Most drives will ship with the latest firmware but check it to be sure.

Can you boot by f8 or whatever your boards option is to get into the menu? You may be able to boot into it that way.

Other suggestion: Unplug it all but the dvd drive and try to boot to the dvd.

[Daimus]

Firmware v.0009

Release Date: 08/25/2011
Change Log:

* Changes made in version 0002 (m4 can be updated to revision 0009 directly from either revision 0001 or 0002)
* Improved throughput performance.
* Increase in PCMark Vantage benchmark score, resulting in improved user experience in most operating systems.
* Improved write latency for better performance under heavy write workloads.
* Faster boot up times.
* Improved compatibility with latest chipsets.
* Compensation for SATA speed negotiation issues between some SATA-II chipsets and the SATA-III device.
* Improvement for intermittent failures in cold boot up related to some specific host systems.

[erocker]

Also only have the SSD installed when installing Windows. Sometime windows likes to put an system files partition on other drives causing the install screw-up.

[MikeTyson]

Haha it was a nice try (:



But again, my luck with computers is... awful. It says I already have 0009, so I guess that's good... but means this will be harder to solve :/

I can boot to the DVD fine, it just comes up with that error when it does the Windows Is Loading Files bit... the SSD is recognised in BIOS but then I get that stupid message

I have NOTHING plugged in other than DVD drive and SSD

[freaksavior]

format the ssd in another computer and try plugging it back in to the one you want to install windows on?

[Daimus]

Originally Posted by MikeTyson

I can boot to the DVD fine, it just comes up with that error when it does the Windows Is Loading Files bit... the SSD is recognised in BIOS but then I get that stupid message

Do you have another copy of Windows installation disk? Try it. Or download windows from torrent, save on HDD and try to install from HDD.

[MikeTyson]

I find it important to mention at this moment in time that this is the only computer that I have besides the MacBook Pro I'm posting on now... so using another PC isn't an option

Ermm, I'm downloading and burning a torrent at the moment to see if that'll work, if not then I could try from a hard drive I guess but I don't know how to do that. Maybe you could help? (:

[freaksavior]

Originally Posted by MikeTyson

I find it important to mention at this moment in time that this is the only computer that I have besides the MacBook Pro I'm posting on now... so using another PC isn't an option

Ermm, I'm downloading and burning a torrent at the moment to see if that'll work, if not then I could try from a hard drive I guess but I don't know how to do that. Maybe you could help? (:

Well try the torrent copy of windows (make sure it's untouched.) That would probably fix it from what you previously said.

[MikeTyson]

Just finished burning it, verifying the disc to make sure it's free from errors and then I'll see what happens (:

[MikeTyson]

Okay the torrented Windows 7 DVD is working fine... hmm weird, thank you for all your help guys! Really great community here, appreciate it (: Will let you know of how my SSD works when it finally installs.

As sad as it sounds, the only reason I bought it was for Battlefield 3 ha

[freaksavior]

Awesome, glad it was that and nothing else.

[Daimus]

Originally Posted by MikeTyson

Okay the torrented Windows 7 DVD is working fine... hmm weird, thank you for all your help guys! Really great community here, appreciate it (: Will let you know of how my SSD works when it finally installs.

As sad as it sounds, the only reason I bought it was for Battlefield 3 ha

Glad to hear that everything turned out. It would be interesting to know how your SSD works.

Originally Posted by MikeTyson

I could try from a hard drive I guess but I don't know how to do that. Maybe you could help? (:

Sorry, I had to go yesterday, time was out. If you downloaded windows as disk image on HDD, you need to use Daemon tools http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/products/dtLite to emulating virtual CD/DVD drive. Then run installation as if you have one more DVD.

[Tatty_One]

The M4 is an outstanding drive, in price/performance and consistency terms its very hard to beat, I am bound by SATA II so cannot realise the full potential but read/writes are around 12% faster across the board than my old Bigfoot even on SATA II.