Having trouble to boot from Samsung SSD

[pab_56]

Hi,

please, I need some support from you.

I cannot boot any longer from my SSD, Samsung, 128GB, MMCRE28G5MXP-0VB, separated into three partitions: 1st 100MB, reserved partition set up by Win7 - 2nd 90GB NTFS Win7 - 3rd rest of SSD not partitioned for future purposes (probably a Linux derivate).
First symptom of starting trouble was a short flickering of my screen explained as a reloading of driver because of an error. Then an 0x0000019 Blue Screen occurred. Since then I can only boot from my HDDs. Booting from SSD I am asked to re-install Win7 (using Win7 Ultimate, 64bit).
A few days ago I upgraded my SSD to Firmware 1.9. During this upgrade process one strange thing occurred: it was not possible to use DOSRD in AHCI-mode (I received an error message). I had to switch the MB to IDE-mode, upgrading then and switching back to AHCI-mode (don’t ask me how many hours I needed to find out this work around). I thought this was a weakness of the program DOSRD / driver. But today I consider this could be first hint on an upcoming error?! Nevertheless, since this upgrade no further error occurred until now.
I plan to use following strategy to clean up the SSD from scratch on.
1. Make an image from SSD by using TrueImage - IMHO this will leave the garbage which had been produced in the time period not to be supported by TRIM features.
2. Low Level Format of SSD – as I don’t know a fitting program (Hutil will not work, will it?) I wanted to use
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=512
But I am scared to destroy the structure of the SSD. What is about the block size? Shouldn’t I use 4K as SSD is organized in pages of 4k? I would feel more comfortable by using an LLF-program for this purpose. Any suggestions?
3. Quick format (or better standard format?) using diskpart?
4. Restore the image
5. To make sure that MSAHCI is used instead of Intel AHCI. I don’t know to check it now, because I cannot boot from SSD .
Does the plan described above make sense? Is there a better alternative?

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you in advance, PAB

 

[mikey5802]

You'll have to reinstall your OS... Here's a link from Samsung advising that the FW update will destroy all data.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/flash/ssd/2008/down/FirmwareDownloadGuide.pdf

You don't mention which mobo you have... I suggest you check the manufacturers website (or the board's CD) and see if they have specific AHCI drivers. If so, use those.

You should be OK using the Win 7 format feature but if you're not sure, ceck with Samsung support. What steps did you take when you originally formatted the SSD?

 

[sub mesa]

I would say:

2. dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Would be alot faster; you don't need to use low block sizes.

And you should skip part 3) - since you're working with raw disk images, the image you restore should contain the partition table and everything else, as well.

 

[pab_56]

You'll have to reinstall your OS... Here's a link from Samsung advising that the FW update will destroy all data.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/flash/ssd/2008/down/FirmwareDownloadGuide.pdf

You don't mention which mobo you have... I suggest you check the manufacturers website (or the board's CD) and see if they have specific AHCI drivers. If so, use those.

You should be OK using the Win 7 format feature but if you're not sure, ceck with Samsung support. What steps did you take when you originally formatted the SSD?

Mikey5802, thank you very much for your answer.
- Yep, I know that. That is the reason, why I installed the OS after the FW upgrade. Might be I was not precise enough with the tenses. Sorry for that. The reason I wrote about the FW upgrade was to include the information about the non-working AHCI-driver.
- I thought about using the MB-AhCI-driver, but decided against it, because I have information that e.g. Intel driver do not work with TRIM functionality and 1.9 together. BTW, it is an ASUS P5Q.
- I used format of Win7, but that seems to lead into trouble sooner or later. I assume it dpends on the time I used SSD without TRIM.

 

[pab_56]

I would say:

2. dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Would be alot faster; you don't need to use low block sizes.

And you should skip part 3) - since you're working with raw disk images, the image you restore should contain the partition table and everything else, as well.

Sub mesa, thank you very much for your answer.

2. I will give it a try.
3. I will skip it.

I do not have to be scared to destroy some information on the SSD needed later by the controller, do I? Something like the page size or the organizational structure of the disk or how to be controlled by Win7 or what ever?

 

[sub mesa]

You won't have access to special areas (HPA's) on the SSD unless you use a special utility called HDDErase - that allows you to wipe the special area which is the same as a full zero-write.

But the dd command is harmless, just know that anything on the SSD will be overwritten with zeroes. It should not be 'bad' for the SSD, other than the normal wear caused by writing to it.

 

[sub mesa]

A side note: disconnect any other HDDs you may have when performing that dd command, to prevent you from working on the wrong disc!

 

[pab_56]

A side note: disconnect any other HDDs you may have when performing that dd command, to prevent you from working on the wrong disc!

This is a really good one. Allows you to wait for finishing the dd-command without getting nervous.

 

[pab_56]

Thank you very much to everybody joining the discussion. It helped a lot and made me sure to do the things right.

Iit was as supposed. During the period of non-TRIM the SSD filled up with garbage and Win7 rejected to work on partitions where it couldn't write to. Low level formatiing with the dd-ommand and restoring the raw image using TrueImage worked without any problem. I am glad that I did not follow the request of Win7 to start some rescue measurements, but followed my gust that this is related to the TRIM problem.

PROBLEM SOLVED THANK YOU VERY MUCH.