Possible Hard Drive failure?

Culver · February 2012

So I'm really hoping this isn't a hard drive failure but here it goes:

So for the past two days when using windows my computer will randomly freeze and eventually get a BSOD. Now the error that pops up with that is Kernel error 41. Which through researching and using Google means little next to nothing in solving my issue. So my computer restarts itself and when trying to re-launch windows 7 it gives me a message that says due to software and or hardware changes, windows can't start up.

When looking back in the bios after the crash, it does not recognize my Solid State Drive that has windows installed on it. However, after force restarting the computer, I can launch windows and mess around for a few minutes before it crashes again and the process repeats itself.

Any ideas or suggestions? Would be appreciated, I've already tried system restoring back a week with no improvement on the issue. Just looking for other ideas that wouldn't require me sending this hard drive back and wait weeks for a replacement.

For reference I am using a Mushkin Callisto DX2 Series 115GB 2.5" Solid State Disk with Windows 7 64 bit.

Good Idea · February 2012

Well, the bad news is that yes, you'll likely have to send it in for a replacement. If it's the same thing that happened to me, the ssd has run out of writable blocks, and turns itself off when it can't recover from a write error. That would explain why it's not visible in the BIOS after a warm reboot, but turns up on a hard reset (I assume that's what you mean by force restarting). How old is the drive?

The good news: If I'm right, you can get to your data if you can connect the ssd to another computer. When you do that, you might run something like CrystalDiskInfo and check the SMART data, which could give you more clues.

edit: Of course, I might be jumping to conclusions. Could also be the controller going bad, or shitty firmware. If you can put put the portable version of Crystaldiskinfo on a usb stick and run it during those few minutes where windows works, take a screenshot and store it on the stick.

Robes · February 2012

Speaking of crashing hard drives, a 1 TB hard drive that is making clicking and grindingish noises. The O.S is on my SSD. The hard drive shows up in windows about 50% of the time after boot up. But I can't really get to my data.

Does anyone recommend any software I can use for data recovery?

AF-IX · February 2012

I had a VERY similar issue of BSOD with my latest computer build.

It turns out the problem was that I had connected my SSD drive (OCS Vertex 3) onto the Marvell SATA controller/connector on the motherboard (Maximus 4 Extreme-Z).
I disconnected it and plugged it into the Intel SATA conroller/connector (also 6gb/s) and the problem went away completely. The controller for my SSD is Sandforce...which yours is as well.

Try connecting the drive cable to a different controller/connector. It's worth a shot.

Winky · February 2012

This may be related, I am having somewhat similar problems:

My Sandisk SSD kept freezing up my computer last weekend (it would load up Windows 7, but when I tried to do certain things like go to a webpage in Chrome the hdd LED would just turn on and the whole thing would freeze). Also, my BIOS was being difficult about letting me use my SSD as the boot drive. I ended up fixing it by running startup repair and then checkdisk, and everything worked fine until last night. Out of nowhere my computer froze again (I think I was in the middle of scanning something into photoshop). When I turned it back on this time my BIOS just didn't see my SSD at all. I tried opening it up and plugging it into a different connector (moving it from 3gb/s to 6gb/s), swapping out the SATA cable, changing the power supply connection, nothing seemed to change the fact that it just couldn't see the SSD.

Any suggestions before I send the thing back to Sandisk? Luckily I was pretty much just using it for running applications, so in the worst case scenario I have to redownload/reinstall everything.

AF-IX · February 2012

Winky wrote: »

This may be related, I am having somewhat similar problems:

My Sandisk SSD kept freezing up my computer last weekend (it would load up Windows 7, but when I tried to do certain things like go to a webpage in Chrome the hdd LED would just turn on and the whole thing would freeze). Also, my BIOS was being difficult about letting me use my SSD as the boot drive. I ended up fixing it by running startup repair and then checkdisk, and everything worked fine until last night. Out of nowhere my computer froze again (I think I was in the middle of scanning something into photoshop). When I turned it back on this time my BIOS just didn't see my SSD at all. I tried opening it up and plugging it into a different connector (moving it from 3gb/s to 6gb/s), swapping out the SATA cable, changing the power supply connection, nothing seemed to change the fact that it just couldn't see the SSD.

Any suggestions before I send the thing back to Sandisk? Luckily I was pretty much just using it for running applications, so in the worst case scenario I have to redownload/reinstall everything.

Make sure in the BIOS, the SATA controller is set to AHCI mode.

Winky · February 2012

I went ahead and changed it to AHCI mode (it was in IDE mode). It doesn't seem to make a difference, it's still failing to recognize that the SSD is even there.

Guess I just have to send it in, then?

AF-IX · February 2012

Fuuuuck,...
~tries to think what else it could be~

Did you try ALL of the different SATA controllers/connectors on the MB? Maybe a few of them are bad (?)

Have you tried re-setting the BIOS back to factory/optimal defaults? (But make sure SATA set to AHCI).

Penny Arcade

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