Bricked OCZ SSD, any ideas to fix it?

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[U]ber|Noob

Limp Gawd
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I have an old 64gb Vertex 2 OCZ SSD drive that spontaneously turned into a brick a year ago or more but I haven't quite got around to throwing it out yet.

When you connect it, it sometimes actually detects and you can browse files but I think when you try to open something or format it etc. it no longer works and no longer detects, but then will detect again in the future.

In linux whenever you try to format or partition it, it always says error retry cancel ignore.

Of course I stopped using it when it had Windows on it and it kept crashing and then wouldn't detect on startup.

I have tried updating the firmware but it says firmware failed and then it won't detect anymore.

Is it time to throw it out?
 
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Mine does the same thing. I just Trim it every week and it continues to work. If I go say a month without manually running a trim it will lock up and I have to format it. Good luck!
 
Oh, there was a trim option in the OCZ tool. I didn't know what it did, but I'll try it.

Thanks.
 
I selected the trim option and it trimmed successfully but then it wouldn't detect, similar to when you try to do anything else and it no longer detects. Although I did have to plug it into a faulty sata port (I have one of the early sandy bridge motherboards with the sata port issue and the two non affected ones were already used).

So then I tried it in a ubuntu box and the same problem where it says error retry ignore cancel whenever you try to use gparted.

Would I have to trim it more than once to get it to work?
 
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It seemed to be working then it stopped working again. Guess it is faulty.
 
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Actually it is unbricked now.

It stopped working when it was full and wouldn't even format again until the firmware was updated, but it was made more difficult by having 4 faulty sata ports. This time I will leave 40% unallocated space.
 
The ocz vertex II 64gb ssd worked again for quite a while but now it is spontaneously bricked again.

This time it just stalls the computer startup at hdd detection and the OCZ Bootable Tools v4.9.0.634.iso won't detect it if I connect it after bootup.

Any ideas of something to try to fix it this time?
 
[U]ber|Noob said:
The ocz vertex II 64gb ssd worked again for quite a while but now it is spontaneously bricked again.

This time it just stalls the computer startup at hdd detection and the OCZ Bootable Tools v4.9.0.634.iso won't detect it if I connect it after bootup.

Any ideas of something to try to fix it this time?
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I threw mine in a box after it did the same thing. I few months later I hooked it up and it started working again. /shrug

I then threw it back into the storage box as I don't trust it. :) Time to upgrade! :) :) :)
 
Is this fairly common with ssds, that they are breaking for other reasons before the memory actually wears out through use?
 
It has a solid light on the side that stays on with another light that also flashes.
Since it's bricked anyway, is there anything I might try? I tried different sata ports and different computers.

I opened it up is there anything I could try?
 
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Also note that Vertex2s (and other first gen Sandforce drives) don't work with Haswell and newer Intel SATA chipsets. I fought this one for ages until I ran across a forum post somewhere that mentioned the problem. The symptoms are similar to what you are posting, the drive only randomly shows up in BIOS/Windows, and when it does show up it usually just drops out the second you try to do anything with it. It's a Sandforce 1xxx controller bug, so nothing to be done to fix it.

Only workaround I've found is you can sometimes use additional SATA ports if they're hooked to something like a Marvel/Asmedia/etc... secondary controller, as these seem be a little more forgiving to the slightly out of spec Sandforce 1xxx drives.
 
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[U]ber|Noob said:
It's been used for a while with this computer but suddenly today won't work anymore.

So it's been tested with an MSI p67a-c43 version 1 with the faster and slower sata ports.
I also tested it with one of these.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PCI-E-To-SATA3-0-Three-Generations-PCIE-SATA3-Expansion-Card-PCI-E-Adapter-OK/261685799551?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Same thing with everything.

Startup just stalls for a while and finally won't detect it, bios doesn't show it.
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Time to just trash the drive. Not worth the hassel you going through for a old 64GB OCZ SSD.
 
How long as newer model lower cost ssds lasting on average thesedays (not flash memory wear but the general controllers etc)?
 
[U]ber|Noob said:
How long as newer model lower cost ssds lasting on average thesedays (not flash memory wear but the general controllers etc)?
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My expectation is > 10 years for a 5XX GB and larger SSD under normal desktop usage.

With that said you have to remember that any storage device can die at any time (regardless of who manufacturers it or what you paid). Even though annual failure rates for most quality SSDs will likely be less than 1% it does not say who gets the drives that fail you could be in that failure group.. Always have a backup plan for important data.
 
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Thanks, I was meaning as an average. I know there can always be faulty things.

How much longer could it be made to last with swap off and browser cache off for example? Would you expect it to last longer or still fail at some power level because it has just as much time powered on even if less writes to the flash memory?

I mean what's usually failing first the controller or power system or the actual flash memory due to writes (with modern ssds in the lower price range)?
 
Get a quality brand with a high TB endurance rating and long warranty. Then you don't have to worry about page files and caches hurting it.
 
How much longer could it be made to last with swap off and browser cache off for example?
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Several decades. However the point of a SSD is to speed up your machine.

just as much time powered on even if less writes to the flash memory?
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Most SSD deaths have little to do with wearing out the flash.
 
My OCZ Vertex 3 is doing something similar. It'll work for a while, usually 2-3 months, and one day it would lock up the computer, and require a power cycle to make it function again.

I remember there were firmware updates to fix these issues but it doesn't look like they're available anymore. Kind of a shame since it's a 120 GB and still useful as an OS drive.
 
Vertex 2... Biggest piece of shit SSD I ever used. Had to RMA it twice in 6 months. Didn't even bother using the 3rd replacement and just bought an crucial m4, which had no problems since....

I would get whatever files you need and scrap it. It's just not worth the headache, especially when it's already unreliable. Mine just worked, then they just stopped being detected/booting.
 
It did crash once before where I think it wouldn't write but a firmware update fixed that about a year ago.

Now it just has a red light and it won't detect at all in bios, I tried ide mode, I tried the ocz bootable iso, I tried leaving it on for hours, tried different plugs, different controllers, it's always the red light and no bios detection. Looks like it's broken this time. It wasn't that cheap new.
 
It's a Pre-Toshiba OCZ Vertex, which never worked well even when they worked properly. Do yourself a favor and buy an SSD from a reputable manufacturer and you will save yourself many headaches later in time.
 
I use the same 64gb vertex 2 as a pfsense drive. Luckily mine has been solid for years, but these are well known for having problems.
 
[U]ber|Noob said:
Have you ever had a solid red light and it won't detect in bios?
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Every Vertex2 that died at work had the red light of death, and never worked again after that. If I remember right, it's some sort of panic lock due to either a dead nand chip or corrupt eeprom, and never came across any sort of fix. I did recently try to recover one of them by shorting a couple pins and putting it into some sort of factory mode, but even the firmware tools someone "obtained" from Sandforce couldn't do anything with the drive other than just spit out a bunch of errors when I tried to do anything with the drive.
 
Ok thanks. So it's no good. I hope something similar doesn't happen with other brand ssds after a while.
 
[U]ber|Noob said:
Ok thanks. So it's no good. I hope something similar doesn't happen with other brand ssds after a while.
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Any drive can die at any time so there is always a chance of failure. Most good brands of SSDs will have a less than 1% annual failure rate. OCZ had double digit annual failure rates on many of their drives.
 
Does it occur through wear to the controller when data is being written or read or just from it being powered on?
 
Has anyone sent one of these red light of death / panic mode OCZ Vertexes to a data recovery service and have had success?
 
master381 said:
Has anyone sent one of these red light of death / panic mode OCZ Vertexes to a data recovery service and have had success?
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I've seen it discussed on other forums, but never any mention of success, mainly because Sandforce drives all store data using a proprietary compression and encryption scheme and there's no way to recover the encryption key once the drive is dead. It's pretty common for SSDs to use encryption to store data on the flash chips, since it's basically free with even the slowest of drive controllers these days. They usually store the encryption key in plain text unless you use some sort of additional protection like a BIOS HDD lock, and I imagine stuff like BitLocker does the same. If you've ever secure erased an SSD and had it only take a few seconds, it probably just created a new key which effectively makes the existing data completely unrecoverable.

I suppose in theory if you could find a way to extract this key from a working drive, you could save it and use it in the future to recover data from the drive if it fails. That's a ginormous if, and frankly I imagine it's basically impossible outside of of having the manufacturer directly involved in the recovery.
 
I remember having a Vertex II. It randomly died one day with no warning while still under warranty. Got a replacement and that one died a few months later too. I've been afraid to buy another OCZ drive since.
 
Banya said:
I remember having a Vertex II. It randomly died one day with no warning while still under warranty. Got a replacement and that one died a few months later too. I've been afraid to buy another OCZ drive since.
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Same here.
 
My friends and I all referred to them as "OCZ Poison". Terrible quality control in early non-Intel/Samsung SSDs, and OCZ was downright notorious for being the worst of the worst.

OCZ was sold to Toshiba a couple years ago, so they're probably fine now.
 
About a year ago I had one of these SF-1222 drives disappear from the BIOS. I did daily backups so it was no big deal at the time but I still look at this disk and can't stand the thought of turning it into a drink coaster. It powers up with blue and green steady LEDs but I'm not sure what status that indicates. I guess if I knew a thing or two about JTAG I could get into the device to see what's going on, but oh well.
 
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