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Strange problem with Samsung 840 SSD and Windows 7


Beamslider

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Anyone have any idea what caused this issue with an SSD drive in Windows 7?



Samsung 840 SSD 256 GB stopped booting after about 4 months. Message was basically that drive was unreadable or boot sector was missing.


Checked in BIOS and drive showed and showed as the boot drive. So figured maybe the boot sector was messed up.


I booted using a Windows 7 install DVD to repair. The Install disk did not recognize the drive as a Windows installation; but could use Command Prompt to list contents of drive and even copy to another drive so looked like drive was good.



OK maybe something wrong with motherboard. Moved drive to another computer and got the same thing as in original computer.


I then used a Linux DVD to boot the computer and was able to access the drive and see all the files on it. So looks like nothing wrong with it other than maybe the boot sector is messed.



I then took the drive out put it in a USB case and attached it to another computer with Windows 7. No problem can access and access files on it. Ran the Samsung Software and the software showed the drive as in good health with no problems.


So no big deal as I had a backup of the drive so I put the drive back in the original computer still no boot so tried using a backup to restore to the drive. It couldn’t and said the drive was not a suitable drive. OK no big deal will just do a reinstall of Windows 7. Windows 7 could see the drive but would not install to it or delete partitions either.



I then checked at Samsung support site to see if maybe this was some kind of known issue. No luck there. I noticed that there was a new firmware for the drive at Samsung so downloaded that and burned it to a CD. Upgraded the firmware and rebooted the computer and Windows 7 booted without a hitch.


Loaded up Samsung software and checked the drive with it. Again showed drive as healthy with no problems.



It has been working fine for about 2 weeks since. But this is a real head scratcher as I cannot figure out what happened. I thought it might be a Windows update but that doesn’t make sense as the Windows Install DVD couldn’t work with the drive either.



Any ideas or guesses?



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sounds like a warranty job, I have a 830, a 840 and a 840 Pro (three different machines) the 840 Pro will not accept the latest firmware so I did some digging around and found a few that had done the ISO route to get it to up date and they had dead drives instead. :(

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P.S. I should also say I have left it alone unless it falls over as the Pro range has a five year warranty

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I noticed that there was a new firmware for the drive

Odd one really - something got corrupted but again odd that a FW updated and corrected it all . :huh:

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