Intel SSD G2 TRIM firmware failure rate

If you updated the Intel G2 SSD firmware, did it cause a failure of the drive or not?

  • I've updated my G2 and it's doing fine

    Votes: 39 51.3%
  • I've updated my G2 and it doesn't work

    Votes: 15 19.7%
  • I'm not sure what the heck are you talking about

    Votes: 22 28.9%

  • Total voters
    76

TehQuick

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 3, 2004
Messages
3,738
I just want to find out, how many [H] members updated their Intel G2 SSDs to the new firmware issued yesterday and how many experienced complete or partial SSD failure. While this a biased sample, it might help some to determine whether or not it's worth to update their G2s to the Trim firmware.

With suggestion from Shizo: when you post, please include the following info:
160GB or 80GB
Motherboard chipset (ie X58)
Whether you flashed under AHCI or legacy IDE or something else (compatibility etc)
Version of windows, 32 or 64bit
Drivers - intel (inf update or otherwise) or just stock windows
 
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I was about to flash it yesterday but my friend came over and was going to plan it today. So may be it is a good thing I saw these threads of drive failures. So I will wait till I get at least a partial answer, why it is happening.

Thought I did notice it happens to only Win7 people. I think something in Win7 that corrupts the drive.
 
Add two friends to my vote for updated and working fine.

80GB
Win 7 x64 retail
ICH10R X58
IDE

80GB
Win 7 X64 retail
ICH9R P45
AHCI

160GB
Win 7 X64 retail
ICH10R X58
AHCI
 
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I chose doing fine however I have 2 of these and am not going to attempt it in the other system since that one is business critical.

Flashed with everything still in AHCI mode. No raid.
Windows 7 Ultimate RTM
ICH9R (Abit IP35-Pro)
80GB
 
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I was just going to create a similar poll. Can people also post

160GB or 80GB
Motherboard chipset (ie X58)
Motherboard manufacturor (ie EVGA, ASUS, etc)
Whether you flashed under AHCI or legacy IDE
Version of windows
Whether you have the 100MB recovery partition

My 160GB flash was successful in legacy IDE mode, X58 chipset, win7 64bit. Asus motherboard, with the 100MB partition.
 
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I can only vote 1 time, but everything is ok after flashing my two 160GB X25-M.

X58
Flashed under legacy IDE
Win 7 64 bit
 
My 160GB flash was successful in compatible IDE mode, X58 chipset, Windows 7 64bit
 
1 80gb bad.

Intel X58
ICH10R
AHCI
Windows Home Premium x64

Since there doesn't seem to be any sort of a pattern based off of what I've read here and on other sites I'm starting to lean towards there being a bad batch of drives out there.
 
Still a very small sample size but yeah, I haven't seen any commonalities so far.
 
I had to move out my ssd to the old system (current MSI x58 mobo died, last time I trust them again)

It's currently in:

160gb X-25m g2
680i mobo
legacy ide
Win7 home premium x64

Fine so far
 
MINE WORKS:

80GB G2
Asus P5K-E
WinXP Home (32-bit)

Flashed under IDE Compatibility mode.

Never used AHCI before or after flash.

I use Enhanced IDE before & after flash for OS, I could never get AHCI to boot from the get go.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've noticed its pretty much all Win 7 systems with the problems right?
Also noticed a lot of people were running eVGA or Dell mobos.
And noticed a few people mentioning that 100Mb recovery partition that Win7 locks for restoring, etc..

I'm thinking its a problem with Win7 and the 100Mb recovery partition being locked, possibly misaligned? We need some information on if you people have/had the 100Mb recovery partition, some users here don't. And possibly on the raid systems where people only had one drive die, it was the drive with the recover partition?


I'm just spit balling here, but maybe Win7 locking that partition screws up something.
 
Interesting concept. On my home machine - my original install process was to plug the drive in with my existing Win 7 install still running on a HDD and partitioning and formatting it that way so I would have use of the drives full capacity. Then I made the drive the boot drive in BIOS and did a clean install of Win 7 onto it. Hence no 100mb recovery partition. The firmware upgrade went fine.
 
by default, Win 7 creates 100mb partition. If intel flash messes up the partitions I guess the best way is to flash, and upon reboot make a fresh install win 7 on it, formatting the drive in the process
 
My bad upgrade was on a Asus server motherboard, on a Windows Server 2008 x64 R2 system upgraded from Server 2008, so no 100mb partition here. Another odd thing is if I put the drive in IDE mode smart reports a bad drive, but if I put in in AHCI mode SMART reports everything is A-OK, even though the drive is corrupted. I have a ghost backup of the drive that I can restore just fine, but it re corrupts after the first boot (when it detects new hardware/requests a reboot).
 
Good idea.

My successful upgrade was on an asus x58 motherboard with the standard 100MB recovery partition and win7 64bit.

People with bad upgrades-- did any of you have the 100MB recovery partition? Did it fail for anyone not running windows7?
 
Looks like it may be AHCI related, after every ghost restore my drive would re-corrupt after first reboot. This time after restore I set the bios to compatibility SATA only mode instead of Enhance IDE, or Enhanced AHCI mode. Now even though I have the end-to-end SMART error I can boot up and the drive doesn't seem to be re-corrupting.
 
I'm using Windows 7 with the 100MB recovery partition on my SSD and no problems so far. I flashed under IDE Compatibility mode.
 
EVGA X58
ICH10
Win7 64
Intel AHCI driver

Got the serial number=bad_ctx after update.

Win7 ran for a while, then got the windows warning about a system drive error and then blue screen.

I am suspicious about the Intel AHCI driver, which hasn't been updated since April, and doesn't support TRIM.
 
so Windows 7 + AHCI mode are definitely common with everyone with bricked drives...

what else is common to everyone
 
@people with failed upgrades: Do you have the 100MB recovery partition?
 
Working OK so far.

160GB G2
P45 (P5Q Deluxe)
Flashed under AHCI
Windows 7 x64 Pro
Was using the IMSM drivers last night when I flashed the drive. I uninstalled them today so I could get trim working automatically.
 
Successfully updated two Win 7 machines:

Computer 1: Asus P5W-DH Deluxe mobo
Computer 2: Thinkpad T61

Both are running Win 7 x64 and both were flashed in IDE mode (well, the Thinkpad in "Comptability Mode")
 
Working fine after firmware update:

80GB G2
Windows Vista 64-bit
Dell Inspiron 1750 in AHCI mode

performed the upgrade in ATA mode since the updater crashed early (before any prompts) when I tried it in AHCI mode

switched back to AHCI mode immediately after the firmware upgrade
 
Everything went fine

80GB G2
NF4 (DFI Expert)
IDE mode
XP 32bit

SSD toolbox does not see the drive
 
Working fine here:

160GB
965PM, ICH8M
AHCI mode flash
Win 7 Pro x64
stock Windows driver
 
Failure!

Intel X25-M G2 80gb
Motherboard chipset: X58
Motherboard manufacturor: EVGA E758
Flashed using AHCI
Version of windows: Retail Windows 7 64bit
8mb partition
NO RAID
 
Everything works fine

160GB G2
Gigabyte X38-DQ6, ICH9
AHCI mode flash
Win 7 x64 Home Premium OEM
Using Intel Matrix Storage Manager

Intel SSD Toolbox works fine as well
 
My bricked drive had the 100 mb partition.
EVGA X58 SLI LE
Using Microsoft AHCI Drivers only
IDE for flash, AHCI for everything else
W7 x64 Ultimate

After restoring from WHS, the new drive does not have the 100 mb partition, yay, but what a PITA to restore bootability to the restored drive since WHS recovery doesn't do it for you :p. I sure enjoyed learning all about bootsect, bootrec and diskpart.
 
Another small update direct from Intel regarding a question on if you should be worried if you have flashed but are not having problems.

http://communities.intel.com/message/71650#71650

"Intel is sorry about the frustration this is causing. If your drive is working properly with your current system settings, there is a good possibility you will not have any further problems. Please do not change your driver settings at this time until Intel gives further guidance.



Best Regards,

Brady - Intel NAND Solutions Group "
 
Damn, you guys are brave.

I'm not updating my firmware until I hear this thing is fixed... and I'll wait an extra week.
 
Win7 x64 Ultimate
2x 80GB G2 in Raid 0
790i SLI with nvRAID
I've got the 100MB recovery partition.
Updated yesterday with the disks in ACHI mode(just disabled raid in bios, flashed, and then turned raid back on).
No problems so far. Restarted several times.

Intel has confirmed that the problem occurs when TRIM is passed to the SSD, so people running Raid should not have the problem.
 
Where did they confirm that? People with RAID have bricked drives, some in this forum even.
 
to those with bricked drives:

Have you run secure erase on the drive?

I have a feeling it will save it...
 
160GB G2
Asus P6T Deluxe
AHCI mode flash
Windows Vista 64 ultimate retail
Default windows ahci drivers
Intel SSD toolbox works fine.

I think the safest way is to flash the drive using windows vista or lower. Then install windows 7 on it after.
 
noticing quite a few people with bricked drives are running eVGA boards, wondering if they BIOS's on those boards are running some type of combo IDE/AHCI mode that is messing things up as Intel's directions said to use either IDE or AHCI, or Compatibility mode to install firmware.

Anyone have the readme.txt file, I'm not home & I forgot the exact wording but it specified not to use like something like a combo IDE/AHCI mode.

To the people with bricked drives. What other drives are in your systems?
 
I was considering buying one of these drives (80GB) in the next few days, but given all the problems people are having I'm looking into other options.

Would you still recommend the drives provided I don't flash the firmware at this time?
 
Worked fine.

80GB
Win 7 x64 Ultimate RTM
ICH10R X58 (P6T Deluxe V1)
enhanced IDE
Intel Drivers
 
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