SSD becomes read only and cannot boot, is it dead?

[Flanker]

So we have a pretty old Surface 5 Pro. One day it starts to BSOD whenever we tried to turn it on, it has the same message as this one:

Things I've tried:

• Made a USB recovery drive for Surface to try fix it, and I get "There was a problem when resetting your PC. No changes were made." I also tried "dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth" as suggested from MS website and that didn't work either
• Tried a normal windows installation USB drive and just reformat the whole SSD and reinstall windows like I normally do. Well, none of the partitions can be deleted or formatted, and none of them allow me to install windows on them because they are "read only"
• I tried using disk part to unset the read only flag with "attribute disk clear readonly" and it failed with "diskpart failed to clear disk attributes"

Should I declare the disk dead and bury it? Or is there anything else I can try?

 

[Solaris17]

Yes and even if you could get it back (I’m sure someone will want you to secure erase which will fail ) I would never trust this drive again.

 

[SPDIF]

Yep you can declare it dead, SSD life is used up and then go into Read Only state, so you can copy all your stuff.

 

[Flanker]

Damn, thought as much lol.

Since Secure erase option from the recovery drive also fails. Do I need to do anything else to wipe the drive? I remember DBAN doesn't work for SSDs

 

[SPDIF]

Yes it goes to that state when the life is used op, even Secure Erase does not work anymore. Lucky they made it so you don't lose all important stuff from it.

To erase it, just crack it in two pieces, or under a hammer will do the job.
Unless you are a rocket scientist, no one will try to repair that broken SSD and fish pieces out of the trash.

 

[DR4G00N]

Do I need to do anything else to wipe the drive?

If it's important data, once you get everything you need/can off it take the drive out and smash it to bits. Hard to beat a hammer for surefire data erasure.
Edit: I was getting it mixed up with the Surface laptop, there's no replaceable SSD, it's soldered to the board.

 

[Athlonite]

Do I need to do anything else to wipe the drive?

Just beat it repeatedly with a 3ib sledge hammer and toss the remains in the bin

 

[Wirko]

Test the SSD to see if it's still readable after exposure to 110-120°C, or put it away for a year and then check if data is still intact, or practice desoldering, or grind down the chips to see the dies, or do all of that. Mechanical strength test should follow last.

 

[Hardcore Games]

I detest machines that do not have field replaceable SSD etc

 

[yfn_ratchet]

Yeah, drive's a goner. As others have said, copy what you need and then break it apart with your bludgeon of choice/get it shredded (if the data's sensitive).

 

[AUTOEXEC.BAT]

Do I need to do anything else to wipe the drive?

Like others said...use a hammer. And after that to be sure, use a flame thrower to burn it down to ashes for at least 30 minutes

 

[Caring1]

There was one brand in particular that switched to read only once it reached a certain TBW, even if the drive was still perfectly good.
Sadly can't recall which brand that was or if that could be bypassed somehow.

 

[de.das.dude]

TIL what happens when you use SSD to its last breath

 

[A Computer Guy]

There was one brand in particular that switched to read only once it reached a certain TBW, even if the drive was still perfectly good.
Sadly can't recall which brand that was or if that could be bypassed somehow.

Hopefully it wasn't Optane.

 

[Hardcore Games]

Given the Surface 5 is an older machine, with a soldered SSD the machine is now e-waste at its finest.

My laptop at least has a M.2 slot so I can replace it if need be, which is now a growing trend given how many soldered machine gripes are accumulating day by day.

 

[chrcoluk]

Whats was the SSD model? I thought its really hard to wear out a SSD these days.

 

[Hardcore Games]

Hard to say as Microsoft specs are not that extensive

 

[isidroco]

Whats was the SSD model? I thought its really hard to wear out a SSD these days.

Windows is constantly writing LOGs of everything, file size are usually not large because it's limited by the OS, but write operations are constant... there's an interesting workaround to suspend them: https://sourceforge.net/projects/eventlogstop/

 

[chrcoluk]

Windows is constantly writing LOGs of everything, file size are usually not large because it's limited by the OS, but write operations are constant... there's an interesting workaround to suspend them: https://sourceforge.net/projects/eventlogstop/

It writes a lot, but not enough to kill modern SSDs.

Another option if concerned is that primo cache tool, let it still write but reduce the flushes which will reduce physical writes.

 

[Hardcore Games]

I use Dell 14" class machines and they have field replaceable SSD so if it dies I get another one.