Cannot format Samsung EVO 840

[Lucazzo]

Hello all,

I recently purchased a 250GB Samsung SSD, and have had issues with it since the moment I installed it on my desktop.

The SSD is recognized, and appears in BIOS.

The first issue happened the moment I tried using the - terrible - Samsung migration software. After installing the latest version, I proceeded to migrate. My C: drive was there, and my SSD [E:] was there.

A few moments after starting the process, a popup told me there had been an issue writing onto the drive, and migration had no proceeded. I figured this was a software problem (plenty reported), so downloaded EaseUS.

EaseUS gave the same problem. At this point, the SSD was not formatted, simply marked as "active" under Disk Management, and RAW.

Figuring this had to be the issue, I gave it a quick format. It stopped after a few seconds, saying the format had failed.

As a last attempt, I'm giving it a full format via command prompt. It's been 8hrs and it's sitting at a lofty 1%

Am I missing something? Further info:
Win 8.1
Gigabyte UD3 P55A mobo, Intel i7, 12MB memory

At this point I'm quite frustrated and tempted to put the whole thing in a package, and return to the retailer (Amazon). If anyone has any possible solutions, I'm willing to give a try and report back. My understanding is that these are good SSDs, but plenty of users have had installation issues.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[i7Baby]

Are there any updates to the migration software? (either/both)

 

[neieus]

That's a strange problem for sure... I have the same SSD but I didn't use the migration software instead I performed a clean install as it's normally advised when moving to SSD and encountered no issues. You could try doing a clean install on the SSD to see if that works so you'd know if the drive is defective. This way if you're trying to save your current install on the old drive that data would still be there.

 

[IcemanIceer]

Well I had some issues with my Samsung Evo 840. I had to disable S.M.A.R.T in bios. Else it would act very strange while trying to format and find it in Windows 8 install. Allso do you have your bios set to AHCI (best for SSD). One problem is that you cannot change that in the BIOS and boot into windows. You will get bluescreen unless you do some registry tweaking.

 

[techgeek]

Have you tried to delete and remake the partition?

 

[Lucazzo]

That's a strange problem for sure... I have the same SSD but I didn't use the migration software instead I performed a clean install as it's normally advised when moving to SSD and encountered no issues. You could try doing a clean install on the SSD to see if that works so you'd know if the drive is defective. This way if you're trying to save your current install on the old drive that data would still be there.

Unfortunately, a clean install might not be an option for me (posted about it in another thread). Right now I'm focused on trying to get the thing to work at all =/

 

[Lucazzo]

Well I had some issues with my Samsung Evo 840. I had to disable S.M.A.R.T in bios. Else it would act very strange while trying to format and find it in Windows 8 install. Allso do you have your bios set to AHCI (best for SSD). One problem is that you cannot change that in the BIOS and boot into windows. You will get bluescreen unless you do some registry tweaking.

Interesting. I did not disable SMART, but I did set it to AHCI and got bluescreen as it attempted to boot Windows.

Could you direct me to the registry tweaks?

 

[jeffreyp]

Hello all,

I recently purchased a 250GB Samsung SSD, and have had issues with it since the moment I installed it on my desktop.

The SSD is recognized, and appears in BIOS.

The first issue happened the moment I tried using the - terrible - Samsung migration software. After installing the latest version, I proceeded to migrate. My C: drive was there, and my SSD [E:] was there.

A few moments after starting the process, a popup told me there had been an issue writing onto the drive, and migration had no proceeded. I figured this was a software problem (plenty reported), so downloaded EaseUS.

EaseUS gave the same problem. At this point, the SSD was not formatted, simply marked as "active" under Disk Management, and RAW.

Figuring this had to be the issue, I gave it a quick format. It stopped after a few seconds, saying the format had failed.

As a last attempt, I'm giving it a full format via command prompt. It's been 8hrs and it's sitting at a lofty 1%

Am I missing something? Further info:
Win 8.1
Gigabyte UD3 P55A mobo, Intel i7, 12MB memory

At this point I'm quite frustrated and tempted to put the whole thing in a package, and return to the retailer (Amazon). If anyone has any possible solutions, I'm willing to give a try and report back. My understanding is that these are good SSDs, but plenty of users have had installation issues.

Many thanks in advance!

My samsung came with "Magician" software that has a secure erase program. It creates a bootable cd that will reset you disc to original factory setttings.

 

[Samat]

Well I had some issues with my Samsung Evo 840. I had to disable S.M.A.R.T in bios. Else it would act very strange while trying to format and find it in Windows 8 install. Allso do you have your bios set to AHCI (best for SSD). One problem is that you cannot change that in the BIOS and boot into windows. You will get bluescreen unless you do some registry tweaking.

Interesting. I did not disable SMART, but I did set it to AHCI and got bluescreen as it attempted to boot Windows.

Could you direct me to the registry tweaks?

Two ways there seems to be to do it. This one I used myself (includes some registry tweaks: http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-8-after-installation/ (do not use the reg file linked). This other option seems to do it a bit differently, but haven't tried it myself: http://pricklytech.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/windows-8-1-enabling-ahci-after-installing-windows/.