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Computer not seeing OS drive at start... sometimes

Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
I installed a new Plextor M5Pro 256GB SSD a few weeks ago when my Samsung 840Pro suddenly died (missing boot sector.) I installed it just like I have any other, loading a new copy of W7 as the OS, and using SSD Review's W7/SSD optimization guide to set up the system.

One thing I noticed is it does not have a 100MB partition usually found on a boot drive, and IRST does not designate it as a 'system' drive like it does on all my other installs... in fact, according to IRST, there is no system drive.

It didn't bother me so much because everything was working fine... but now it's starting to give me problems at startup... it's not recognizing the drive and, therefor, not loading the OS. This morning I had to restart the computer 5 times before it finally 'saw' the Plextor drive and started the OS. It always sees the storage HDD and the OD drive.

I just went through the trouble of reloading everything from scratch... I don't really want to do it again, but I will if I must. I've become a backup fiend... literally making an Acronis image every day... afraid this thing is going to crash like the Samsung. Anyone have any idea what is going on?
 
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i think your drive or your sata port is going bad...
 
aigomorla said:
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i think your drive or your sata port is going bad...
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Can a bad SATA port corrupt a drive? If the new Plextor is, indeed, bad... that would make 2 premium SSD's that went bad in less than a year. It is the same SATA port (0) that I have used for all my SSDs to date.
 
Charlie98 said:
Can a bad SATA port corrupt a drive? If the new Plextor is, indeed, bad... that would make 2 premium SSD's that went bad in less than a year. It is the same SATA port (0) that I have used for all my SSDs to date.
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I wouldn't think so, unless the motherboard is defective. And, if the board was bad, I would think you would have had other failure indications by now.

I rather suspect you've just been very unlucky. Do you have another system available you could test the SSD in before you RMA?

Personally, after I went through a Corsair SSD followed by a pair of Samsung 840's , I have given up on SSDs for now (data integrity and reliability is far more important to me than speed, as is the ability to have a system that reliably and consistently just works when I turn it on). I'll probably wait another year or two for the technology to further mature before trying again.
 
Last night I swapped the drive into the other SATA3 port and it found the drive but was unable to start the OS even after about 10 tries.

I swapped the drive back to the original SATA3 port, put on a cheapo OEM cable, and *poof* the OS fired right up. I'm almost afraid to shut it down now...

One other question I have that remained unanswered is the missing system partition... I don't know if the two are related or not. This is what my drive looks like, note that there is no 100MB EFI partition. Is this a problem?

 
I vote for it's them cheap Giga SATA ports...
I bought a cheap Giga board..the kind with the up-facing SATA ports,and 1 broke off the 1st day;Then i couldn't find it and stepped on it barefoot the next 😡
 
It's the desktop in my sig... Mobo is v1.3 w/F8 BIOS. None if the BIOS updates involved upgrades that pertained to me so I'm still with the factory BIOS.

I loaded a fresh copy of W7 on my 'new' refurb Samsung 840Pro last night... It created an EFI partition...
 
Most of the time, when I do a BIOS updates, I see changes that aren't even mentioned. Might want to throw F10 on there and see what happens.

Maybe I missed it, but if you run into corruption again, you may want to try a different port from fresh install. I am thinking if data is getting corrupted on one of the ports/cables, switching is not going to undo what has already occurred.
 
Steltek said:
I wouldn't think so, unless the motherboard is defective. And, if the board was bad, I would think you would have had other failure indications by now.

I rather suspect you've just been very unlucky. Do you have another system available you could test the SSD in before you RMA?

Personally, after I went through a Corsair SSD followed by a pair of Samsung 840's , I have given up on SSDs for now (data integrity and reliability is far more important to me than speed, as is the ability to have a system that reliably and consistently just works when I turn it on). I'll probably wait another year or two for the technology to further mature before trying again.
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Ahah! Finally, someone with uber savvy and experience corroborates my take on moving up to SDDs right now. Indeed, I do think those pies not cooked yet. and U bet; it's abolut being able to depend normally on stable hardware functioning when we power a system on. Not really about money at all.
 
Virgorising said:
Ahah! Finally, someone with uber savvy and experience corroborates my take on moving up to SDDs right now. Indeed, I do think those pies not cooked yet. and U bet; it's abolut being able to depend normally on stable hardware functioning when we power a system on. Not really about money at all.
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It's funny... my original SSD, a lower-tier OCZ SF2281 drive, has been uber stable going on 2 years now. I get a much vaunted Samsung 840Pro and it pukes within a year... or did it? I wonder how much perhaps the SATA port or a bad cable had to do with that? 😕 And, as far as picking on the SSD itself... there are plenty of failures with HDD's and RAM, too. 😛
 
ketchup79 said:
Most of the time, when I do a BIOS updates, I see changes that aren't even mentioned. Might want to throw F10 on there and see what happens.

Maybe I missed it, but if you run into corruption again, you may want to try a different port from fresh install. I am thinking if data is getting corrupted on one of the ports/cables, switching is not going to undo what has already occurred.
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If I can keep it running until Thanksgiving, I'll have the time to wipe the Plextor, flash the new BIOS, and reinstall W7 and rebuild everything. I might start that on the refurb Samsung and see what happens... if it likes it, maybe I'll just clone it over... it would save a lot of headache.

Make sure it's the only OS boot drive selected in the BIOS.
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It is... I only have the SSD and a storage HDD on the system... it doesn't have much choice!
 
Charlie98 said:
It's funny... my original SSD, a lower-tier OCZ SF2281 drive, has been uber stable going on 2 years now. I get a much vaunted Samsung 840Pro and it pukes within a year... or did it? I wonder how much perhaps the SATA port or a bad cable had to do with that? 😕 And, as far as picking on the SSD itself... there are plenty of failures with HDD's and RAM, too. 😛
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Yes! For me, sadly, NO SURPRISE.

And, I observe, "much vaunted," most often, does not reflect the fact that the newer, the crummier! Now, all components are made in third world county basements, possibly by small children chained to some wall.

But I also now think, SDD technology is still at an early stage of evolution.

The price of everything continues to go down, but the quality as well. Increasingly, it's a real minefield, and the current reality, too often becomes the New Norm.
 
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Virgorising said:
But I also now think, SDD technology is still at an early stage of evolution.

The price of everything continues to go down, but the quality as well. Increasingly, it's a real minefield, and the current reality, too often becomes the New Norm.
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Not to turn this thread into a I Hate SSD thread... but I think you are wrong. SSD tech is probably mid-level at this point and I think very reliable drives are produced at this point. You get what you pay for... be it an entry-level or enterprise SSD... or consumer, server or enterprise HDD. Supply and demand have more to do with the pricing structure than does 'quality,' whatever that may mean to you or the next person (ask Robert Persig. 😉 )
 
Charlie98 said:
Not to turn this thread into a I Hate SSD thread... but I think you are wrong. SSD tech is probably mid-level at this point and I think very reliable drives are produced at this point. You get what you pay for... be it an entry-level or enterprise SSD... or consumer, server or enterprise HDD. Supply and demand have more to do with the pricing structure than does 'quality,' whatever that may mean to you or the next person (ask Robert Persig. 😉 )
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I Never said I hated SSDs, and I stand by my comments, including the clear diminution of quality in far too many things.

We are each entitled to our takes on this and that, especially when they are carefully arrived at. I agreed with Stelteks observations and then simply added some of my own.
 
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Didn't say you hated SSDs... What I don't want is the OP topic deteriorating into a discussion on SSD merits or limitations... That's a topic of discussion that belongs in Memory and Storage.
 
Charlie98 said:
Didn't say you hated SSDs... What I don't want is the OP topic deteriorating into a discussion on SSD merits or limitations... That's a topic of discussion that belongs in Memory and Storage.
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But things have an organic progression in what elements trigger. Again, I was following up on Seltek's post, which I felt was a properly organic. There are no straight lines in nature.
 
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