SSD Failure... SP A55 disappears from bios after failed boot attempt.

[atarione]

So this rather hilariously named SP A55 256GB SSD has apparently packed up. I have it in a back up pc (that is rarely used).. I tried to use said computer yesterday and it BSOD on start up and then after restarting and it starting automatic repair it reboots a 3rd time and the Drive is no longer detected by the motherboard bios... This seems to be a consistent pattern with this drive as I messed with it 3 /4 times and it behaves the same 1st power on detected but BSOD and then restarts tries automatic repair and then restarts to bios where drive no longer is present.

This drive is terrible and cost about $26 so no huge loss there is nothing important on it.. it is in warranty but paying shipping to get another one of these stupid drives that dies after ~2yrs of very light use seems like kinda throwing good money after bad?

I took the drive out and put it in my external usb SATA docking station and when running chkdsk this happens..


out of curiosity is there anything else to reasonably try or is this ssd just toast?

apptly named A55 indeed... it is A55 for sure.

 

[GotNoRice]

Have you tried running CrystalDiskInfo and see what it says about the drive?

My guess is that the CHKDSK error is due to the drive basically cutting-out during the scan.

If there are any files that you need off the drive, I would try to copy them off while you still can. Copy files in small batches, don't try to copy 50GB at once or it will likely fail during the copy process.

Once you have everything you need off the drive, I would delete all partitions, create a new partition, format NTFS, and run a CHKDSK /R on the empty drive. If CHKDSK completes without errors, do a bunch of test copies of files onto the drive. Attempt to completely fill the drive while testing, just to make sure that you are testing all of the flash.

If it works at that point, it might still be worth using for random stuff, but I still wouldn't use it for anything important going forward.

In the future, if you need a small cheap SSD for something, I would not go with an SSD from some trash brand. You can get used 250/256GB SSDs from Intel and Samsung for about that same price ($20-30) and they will pretty much last forever. One of my favorites is the Samsung PM871a, which is an OEM model MLC drive. Reliable, cheap, and can handle massive number of writes due to being MLC. The only "downside" is that Samsung OEM drives do not work with Samsung Magician but no big deal...

 

[philb2]

Have you tried running CrystalDiskInfo and see what it says about the drive?

My guess is that the CHKDSK error is due to the drive basically cutting-out during the scan.

If there are any files that you need off the drive, I would try to copy them off while you still can. Copy files in small batches, don't try to copy 50GB at once or it will likely fail during the copy process.

Once you have everything you need off the drive, I would delete all partitions, create a new partition, format NTFS, and run a CHKDSK /R on the empty drive. If CHKDSK completes without errors, do a bunch of test copies of files onto the drive. Attempt to completely fill the drive while testing, just to make sure that you are testing all of the flash.

If it works at that point, it might still be worth using for random stuff, but I still wouldn't use it for anything important going forward.

In the future, if you need a small cheap SSD for something, I would not go with an SSD from some trash brand. You can get used 250/256GB SSDs from Intel and Samsung for about that same price ($20-30) and they will pretty much last forever. One of my favorites is the Samsung PM871a, which is an OEM model MLC drive. Reliable, cheap, and can handle massive number of writes due to being MLC. The only "downside" is that Samsung OEM drives do not work with Samsung Magician but no big deal...

Also avoid Mushkin. The ONLY SSD to ever fail on me was from this vendor. Fool me once ...

 

[atarione]

Have you tried running CrystalDiskInfo and see what it says about the drive?

My guess is that the CHKDSK error is due to the drive basically cutting-out during the scan.

When the drive is showing up CrystalDiskInfo didn't see any problems with it? But it does seem to intermittently disconnect, There is nothing on this drive important, just a pretty stock windows 10 install for mostly just having a back up PC if mine / or my wife's went down for some reason... But documents and all that are on a NAS so nothing is really local on that PC..

​

Also yeah, I knew better than to buy this POS but it was just a cheap old pc for a backup and so I cheaped out and now get to waste time fixing this thing I guess. I have 1/2 Dozen SSDs around the house in various pc's all of them are Samsung except one Crucial M4 that I have had for ever.. and this defective SP drive.

Anyone have any experience with cheap Kingston SSDs this is $33 on amazon right now... vs $60 for a Samsung 870 Evo (I have one 870 Evo I know it is a good drive but this computer gets used nearly never... mostly just me remoting into it to install updates.. as I have it headless most of the time unless I need it for a temporary rig for some reason. blah blah.. this is the drive model for the kingston. There is also a PNY for $30ish also (but the reviews seem better on the kingston).

Kingston 480GB A400 SATA 3 2.5" Internal SSD SA400S37/480G​

I looked on ebay but everything samsung seemed pretty close to retail price for used drives ... I probably should buy the damn 870 Evo .. amusingly if I had just bought that in the 1st place it would have cost about the same as 2 cheap SSDs... I suppose their is a lesson there? I probably will just get the 870 Evo like I should have done 2yrs ago.. oh well.

 

[bluestang]

If you get an 870 EVO, make sure it has the most recent Firmware as there are issues with those drives.

 

[toast0]

SSDs get weird when they go south. Mostly I've seen them sign off the bus forever, so if it comes back alive, that's an improvement maybe?

It's worth checking for a firmware update, and if that doesn't work, see if you can trim the whole drive and let it sit plugged in, but don't use it for a while to let it do idle cleanup tasks if it does that. If that works, try it again, but I wouldn't trust it.

 

[pitingres]

All SSD's can fail. I have a Silicon Power drive that's going into its fifth year, and have run a few Mushkin's without any issues. The only SSD brand that I've had fail on me while in use was Samsung, an 860.