Is my SSD dead? If not, how can I connect to it?

[sdhaku]

About 4 months ago I installed my first SSD. To be safe I left my HDD (C drive) in my case and just unplugged it. I'm glad I did that because this afternoon I got the Blue Screen of Death! Luckily I was able to just unplug my SSD from the MOBO and plug in my HDD. My questions are:

1. How can I tell if my SSD is dead or screwed up enough to try and request a replacement? When I got the Blue Screen of Death it just flashed and I didn't get the message. After this I was no longer able to boot up off the drive.
2. I originally used AOMEI Backupper to copy my HDD over to my SSD so I could use it as my primary drive. I was thinking of doing that again but how can I access the SSD? When I boot up if both drives are plugged I cannot get past the start-up screen (probably because they're both C) and if I try to plug the SSD into the MOBO after I'm in Windows it doesn't recognize it.

 

[USAFRet]

1. They are not "both C".
The drive letter assignment only happens after the OS starts up. Whatever drive and OS you boot into sees itself as the C. Another drive with another OS would be merely the D, or other drive letter

2. Why do you suspect a dead SSD rather than a borked up OS install, or other software fault?

Try a Repair of the OS, or a full reinstall before an whole RMA for an SSD fault.

 

[sdhaku]

1. They are not "both C".
The drive letter assignment only happens after the OS starts up. Whatever drive and OS you boot into sees itself as the C. Another drive with another OS would be merely the D, or other drive letter

2. Why do you suspect a dead SSD rather than a borked up OS install, or other software fault?

Try a Repair of the OS, or a full reinstall before an whole RMA for an SSD fault.

I installed the drive in June and it's worked fine until today. I haven't installed any new software unless there was some update that caused this to happen. How do I boot off my HDD and then access the SSD? If both are plugged in I cannot get into Windows. If I plug in the SSD after I'm in Windows it does not show up.

 

[USAFRet]

1. They are not "both C".
The drive letter assignment only happens after the OS starts up. Whatever drive and OS you boot into sees itself as the C. Another drive with another OS would be merely the D, or other drive letter

2. Why do you suspect a dead SSD rather than a borked up OS install, or other software fault?

Try a Repair of the OS, or a full reinstall before an whole RMA for an SSD fault.

I installed the drive in June and it's worked fine until today. I haven't installed any new software unless there was some update that caused this to happen. How do I boot off my HDD and then access the SSD? If both are plugged in I cannot get into Windows. If I plug in the SSD after I'm in Windows it does not show up.

What OS is this?

 

[4745454b]

Go back to the way it was, SSD plugged in and HDD not. What drives are shown in the bios?

 

[sdhaku]

OS is Windows 7 Pro. The drive shows in the BIOS when I boot up, however, I cannot get into Windows. There seems to be a whiny, 8-bit video game, kinda noise coming from it which I didn't notice in the past too.

 

[4745454b]

If the drive is seen in the BIOS it's not dead. There is some error preventing it from booting. I'm not sure how to fix it, backing up data and reinstalling will fix it.

 

[sdhaku]

If the drive is seen in the BIOS it's not dead. There is some error preventing it from booting. I'm not sure how to fix it, backing up data and reinstalling will fix it.

I'm okay just rewriting over the disc by cloning my HDD but again my biggest question is how can I connect to the disc in order to do this? Maybe I can try safe mode or something?

 

[sdhaku]

So what I ended up doing was a repair through my Windows install disc. It was able to retrieve the Blue Screen of Death error message and likely undo whatever was done so my system seems to be back to normal.

 

[4745454b]

Good to know. I haven't had to fix a win7 or above install yet. Those OSes are very good at fixing things on the fly during boot. I was great at popping the XP disk back in and doing the fix reinstall. I hear they removed that ability with Win7. Good to hear it's behaving again.