SSD crash/blue screen

[Ranulf]

My Crucial M500 seems to be acting up in the past few days. I was making a back up of the drive (about 400GB) and it failed at the end of the process just at the last moment. The drive then wasn't seen by windows. After a shut down for 10+ minutes, it was up and working for 1.5 days.

My system blue screened about 20mins after I woke it up from sleep this morning with Kernel Data Inpage Error. Windows wouldn't boot after the blue screen. After a 30min break powered off, system is running fine.

According to gsmartctl, the only smart value with a warning is "reallocation event count", 16 raw value. Stablebit scanner says the drive is fine.

So, I'm wondering if this is a warning sign of eventual death or bad cables/mobo. It could be the seagate 3TB HD I use as the internal backup storage but its reported to be fine too.

Oh, and crucial's storage executive doesn't even seen my two crucial ssd's so that was no help.

Thoughts? TIA

 

[UsandThem]

Try this and see if it sees any issues.

http://ssd-life.com/eng/download-ssdlife.html

Just to clarify, you have both of the Crucial drives installed internally in your PC, but the storage executive program doesn't see them at all?

What motherboard are you using and for how long?

 

[Ranulf]

SSD life says its fine, forgot I tried that one too.

Yes, both crucial drives are installed and SE doesn't see them. Apparently its a known problem across many mobos. This system is a gigabyte 970AMD board, almost 5 years old.

 

[hojnikb]

update firmware, do a backup if you can and perform secure erase.

if this doesnt help, rma the drive.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

update firmware, do a backup if you can and perform secure erase.

if this doesnt help, rma the drive.

Dude, relax a little. Jumping right over the easy stuff straight to "secure erase" and "RMA". D:

@OP:

1) Try a different port. Yes, they really can go bad just sitting there.
2) Replace the SATA cable. Yes, they really can go bad just sitting there.

It's not a guarantee, but it's cheap and easy, and those are common enough issues IME that IMHO they should go on the troubleshooting flowchart before "erase everything."

 

[Ranulf]

Heh, yeah that is the next step, a cable swap and or port swap. So far system is fine since yesterday with no changes. Might be time to think about getting a backup mobo though.

Updating the firmware looks to be annoying as the crucial software doesnt see the drive, so have to do it manually. Backup has already been made a couple of days ago. I may just swap the drive out and test it on another system.

 

[Ranulf]

An update for those curious. The system lost the ssd drive on port1 twice more before I swapped ports to test that, including once where the system completely froze with corrupted graphics. It seems to see the drive if I power off the system and let it cool down for 15-20 minutes but rebooting after a windows crash/freeze, windows refuses to boot back into windows and the bios does not see the drive while detecting the others.

After a day on a different port, the drive disappeared in windows again, but the system didn't crash, much like the first time. New sata cable installed and I oh so eagerly await the results.

 

[tweakboy]

Probably a ms update messed things up..

 

[Ranulf]

The saga continues. Are there any known issues with waking up ssd's from sleep mode?

For the first time in two plus weeks, I had the ssd dissapear after waking the computer from sleep mode. Windows rebooted fine but did not see the game ssd drive. After a full power down, psu switch off and a 20 minute break, it booted up fine and the drive was detected.

About 25 minutes into a image backup, the drive disappeared again. I shut down completely, psu switch off, system reboots and all is well after just 1 minute of being offline.

This is with the ssd on a different port and a new cable. It had been fine since the 19th. So, if I can manage to get a current backup made, it is time to swap out the ssd and test it on another machine. The backup seemed to be running rather slow, read speeds at 234 Mb/s in macrium. Normal is around 2 Gb/s read, 1 Gb/s write.

 

[nerp]

Seems like a flaky drive to me.

 

[Elixer]

I have to agree, the drive is acting up, and if a secure erase don't fix it, RMA it.

 

[Ranulf]

Yup, looks like that is the way I have to go. I can't get it to make a final backup image. Drive ends up disconnecting from windows after 15-20 minutes. Gonna swap out drives with a spare and clone. Then test the crucial on my intel system.

To make matters worse, this evening my back panel usb 3.0 ports decided to die. Likely time to replace the mobo heh.

 

[Shmee]

If you have only tested it on one motherboard, it could be the old motherboard. Anyway, I would suspect either.

 

[nerp]

Yup, looks like that is the way I have to go. I can't get it to make a final backup image. Drive ends up disconnecting from windows after 15-20 minutes. Gonna swap out drives with a spare and clone. Then test the crucial on my intel system.

To make matters worse, this evening my back panel usb 3.0 ports decided to die. Likely time to replace the mobo heh.

The info about USB 3 makes me think it COULD be the motherboard, too. Might not hurt to rule it out. Can you pop the SSD in an external box and try it on another system?

 

[Ranulf]

Yeah I haven't ruled it out. I already have a spare mobo for that reason. The usb controller has gotten cranky before, usually once a year it would disappear and need a driver reinstall. The controller decided it wanted to work again after a cold boot up this morning and the ports work again.

I've got various ways to test the ssd on my other systems. Probably go esata or just install it in one of those systems instead of usb 3 enclosure. The tests I ran on the drive in its home system don't show any odds signs speed wise, but the drive cannot handle getting through an imaging backup.

 

[Ranulf]

So, the beat goes on. I swapped out the crucial for a sandisk 480gb, older clone restored just fine and the system has been stable for two+ weeks. I even swapped out my 3tb to a 4tb and the clone went fine in 4 hours for 2.4TB of data.

Testing the crucial 480gb (m500), on another AMD mobo and an Intel one, the Storage Executive program says there are "no drives detected" that can use the program to update the firmware or secure erase on. Data transfers via esata were 100 MB/s, no problems on the intel board. Connected the ssd to an internal port on the intel mobo, still no go with firmware/erase but the cloning process is so far going well.

There is an update to the MU5 firmware available. I'm thinking I'll update it and then erase the drive and test from there.

TLDR, I still haven't ruled out if it is a bad mobo or the ssd is bad.