A lot of super weird stuff happened quickly...

[FordGT90Concept]

I was reading about PAYDAY 2 via Steam and not much else was happening/going on then suddenly, I saw this screen flash for a second:

Unfortuantely, it restarted before I read the last line.

Upon restarting, it didn't boot into Windows. It booted straight into EFI Shell. I exited out of that and noticed:
a) the boot device wasn't set to "UEFI: Windows Boot Manager" like it should have been. It was instead set to "UEFI: Hard Disk."
b) the Crucial MX100 SSD was missing from the SATA list.

I hard restarted the computer which brought the Crucial back. I restarted again to get back into EFI Shell, discovered fs2: is the Crucial SSD and did a dir list on it:
-Program Files (x86)
-temp
-Users
-Windows

Where is Program Files, PerfLogs, and ProgramData? The logical conclusion is the SSD is toast but this is new territory for me. How do I verify the SSD is toast? It has SMART I assume but what SMART reader will work outside of Windows in either EFI Shell or booted in to?


Edit: And I almost forgot the "super weird" part. I was working my server with to access the internet and look up some stuff while my computer was down. Not long after, I lost internet. I power cycled the router and tried accessing the router config page getting 404. I power cycled my NetGear switch and the config page was still getting 404. I looked at the lights on the switch and they were all flashing fast (my computer, server, and cable to router). I unplugged the cable to the router and the server and my computer lights kept flashing. I plugged it back in and unplugged my computer...the activity stopped and the server could once again access the config page/internet. No idea why but my computer (in EFI BIOS or Shell) was spamming the network.

 

[cadaveca]

Yeah, this happens at times with Crucial drives. It can be dying, and not showing up in BIOS is a sign that something went afoul. However, sometimes, once the drive shows back up in BIOS (it might take several reboots before it shows up), it can be good for a long time. Perhaps a bad "sector", and now the drive will use reserved space to compensate. Not sure. All I can say is that I have experienced the same, and eventually drive was not bootable, and after RMA, they repaired the same drive and returned it to me, and it hasn't had a problem at all.

You may want to check for Firmware update using a different machine.

 

[silentbogo]

If it fails again - hook it up to another machine and do a full scan with Victoria HDD it might not be able to find blocks that are close to failure, but it can help to remap already failed blocks(if there are any).

Other than that, if S.M.A.R.T. gives you nothing and disk scan shows no bad blocks, but you still have problems, I'd recommend some read/write scans like FlashDrive tester (ssd has to be in an ext. enclosure). Just remember that this diagnostic utility is destructive: overwrites all data.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The error message makes it sound like there's a file somewhere on the SSD with data saying what happened. Whereabouts would that be? I may be able to retrieve it.

 

[rtwjunkie]

This may be relevant. It worked on my M4 in one of my PC's and have not had one problem in the 3 years since. It's possible it might work on your MX100.

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Crucial...-that-wouldn-t-detect-in-the-BIOS/td-p/110964

Also, the author listed an official Crucial fix.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Yeah, I saw the "official" page. I guess I might as well try it because I'm not really getting anywhere with it right now anyway...

Edit: The BIOS sees the drive but the drive is missing data.


FYI, there is no Windows\MiniDump folder and there is no Windows\memory.dmp file. Either it didn't actually make/save it or it got lost too.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It ran at least 20 minutes without SATA data cable and, no change. Windows still doesn't boot and Windows Boot Manager still doesn't appear in the boot options.

I think I will remove it from my computer and stick it in my server.


Edit: Uh oh, I tried to delete that temp folder because there's nothing important in there. It is write protected.

Edit: I tried to delete an empty text file in temp: Access Denied.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Man, sorry to hear it didn't work. It was worth a shot.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

So, it looks like the SDD went into read-only mode. The only option left is to RMA?

 

[cadaveca]

Like I said earlier, it may take several boots before the drive is recognized again properly, but yes, if you are willing to RMA, I would recommend it for sure. If you want to try to retrieve data, then I would suggest clearing CMOS, and powering up from off, going into BIOS, checking if drive is there, and if not, then do full shut-down. The "20-minute" method has never worked for me, and only using a board with default settings and many power cycles with break between worked for me. I've even had it not work for a few days, then come back to life.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The drive was recognized after the first reboot. EFI Shell can access Users, Program Files (x86), and Windows directories (read-only). It has no knowledge of Program Files, Program Data, nor PerfLogs folders (which should be present). No matter how many times I rebooted, the accessible and missing data remained the same.


Anyone know how long Crucial RMAs take?

 

[cadaveca]

The drive was recognized after the first reboot. EFI Shell can access Users, Program Files (x86), and Windows directories (read-only). It has no knowledge of Program Files, Program Data, nor PerfLogs folders (which should be present). No matter how many times I rebooted, the accessible and missing data remained the same.


Anyone know how long Crucial RMAs take?

A week at most for me, and I'm in Canada. They have some of the best RMA service times for me. Only Dell (<24h) and Western Digital (2-3 days) are faster.

 

[sneekypeet]

Anyone know how long Crucial RMAs take?

Mine take 3-4 days, but.....
I opt to use the Advanced RMA offering where you purchase said product on the credit card, and once your old drive shows at Crucial, the credit is removed. Going this way you only have to wait for travel time from them to you.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

They didn't give me that option.

Still, that's better than the 7-10 days they say on the website. I hope I can ship it out tomorrow.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I put in one of my old Seagate 250 GB hard drives so I can get access to my Steam library again until the replacement SSD gets here.

Edit: And I almost forgot the "super weird" part. I was working my server with to access the internet and look up some stuff while my computer was down. Not long after, I lost internet. I power cycled the router and tried accessing the router config page getting 404. I power cycled my NetGear switch and the config page was still getting 404. I looked at the lights on the switch and they were all flashing fast (my computer, server, and cable to router). I unplugged the cable to the router and the server and my computer lights kept flashing. I plugged it back in and unplugged my computer...the activity stopped and the server could once again access the config page/internet. No idea why but my computer (in EFI BIOS or Shell) was spamming the network.

I figured out what this was about. KillerNIC, apparently in the absence of a driver, wrecks havoc on my network. I was going to use Wireshark to see what it was doing but to use Wireshark, I have to install the driver which stopped it from doing it. Had I thunk of it, I should have run Wireshark on my server to see what it was being subjected to. Hindsight is 20/20. Lesson learned: don't plug KillerNIC into network until after it has drivers!

 

[Ferrum Master]

I had few Crucial M4 and my main M550 never had problems. Well Technical sport is technical sport, things just brake down...

KillerNIC

Ironic, ain't it.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Very. I've worked on hundreds of computers with a variety of NICs plugged into the same switch and none of them exhibited that "Killer" behavior. Granted, this was the first KillerNIC I ever used. In terms of disabling the network (all gigabit), it was damn effective.


Speaking of Crucial, I went back and looked at my emails from them: one was an order form for a Crucial MX100 with payment listed as "on receipt" and one was a return information email. I don't recall giving Crucial payment information but it could be misconstrued as being an "Advanced RMA" where they're shipping out the replacement ASAP and won't charge me for it if they get the defective drive within 10 days. I'll find out in 12 hours or so.

 

[yogurt_21]

haven't had the best of luck with the MX100's of the 16 we've had 2 have failed. The MX200's on the other hand we have over 300 of those guys around not a single failure thus far. Ditto that for the 200 550's we have. Granting we're talking vastly different sample sizes but after 1/8 failure rate we stopped buying them and spent a little more for a newer variant.

 

[RejZoR]

That's the magic of SSD's. HDD's pretty much always start making funny noises or extended low performance etc and then SMART explains what's happening. With SSD's, today it's working fine, tomorrow, it's dead as a brick.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

That's the magic of SSD's. HDD's pretty much always start making funny noises or extended low performance etc and then SMART explains what's happening. With SSD's, today it's working fine, tomorrow, it's dead as a brick.

Me no like.