[SOLVED] Samsung 960 EVO M.2 Intermittent Boot Issues

1tapace

Prominent
Dec 4, 2017
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520
Hello everyone, first-time poster so if I am breaking any rules I apologize.

I have had this issue with my computer where it will work one day and the next day I will come home from work and it won't boot and give me the "reboot and select proper boot device issue". I issued an RMA on the motherboard and received a refurbished one and the issue was gone for a while but it is back again. The SSD is not showing in the BIOS either but my secondary HDD is. If I remove the SSD from the M.2 slot and put it back in it will sometimes fix the issue sometimes not. I have tried moving the GPU into a different PCI slot as it sits on top of the SSD but still no luck. An RMA on the SSD is not an option either as I cannot prove to Samsung that I am under warranty on the purchase. If anyone has any ideas of what I could do I would greatly appreciate it, thank you.


Imgur Image in case anyone doesn't know what error im speaking of: View: https://imgur.com/a/i5WFONG



Specs: Ryzen 1700
GTX 1070
750W Power Supply (new)
MSI x370 SLI Plus Motherboard
32GB DDR4 RAM
960 EVO M.2 250GB SSD
2TB Seagate HDD
 
Solution
Yes, this is likely an issue with the drive itself. Also, for future reference, selecting your own post as the best answer, is, ........well, you can't do that. Because, reasons. It's against the forum rules and guidelines. Just so you are aware.

In the future also, even if this is a valid product purchase, I'd try to stick to buying directly from Amazon. Many of the 3rd party vendors on Amazon and a lot of them on Ebay, are less than reputable if you know what I mean. I've seen plenty of Amazon 3rd party drive purchases where the labels were swapped on a cheaper product that looked similar, or for example, a 1TB label slapped on a 250GB drive. It happens. Best to protect yourself by buying from a guaranteed seller that is completely...
Did you buy this drive on the used market? Ebay?

Can you post an image of the drive including the sticker on the top of the drive?

Unfortunately I think you already know what the probable answer is going to be, as it's likely just a faulty drive, but let's take a look anyhow. Does the drive show up in the BIOS and in Windows drive management as the correct drive type and size?

While it DOES boot, and you can get INTO Windows, have you run a drive health SMART check. That would be a good place to start. Chances are good you may find there are issues with the drive on a health check. I'd download and install Samsung magician and see what the health check there says.
 

1tapace

Prominent
Dec 4, 2017
8
0
520
Did you buy this drive on the used market? Ebay?

Can you post an image of the drive including the sticker on the top of the drive?

Unfortunately I think you already know what the probable answer is going to be, as it's likely just a faulty drive, but let's take a look anyhow. Does the drive show up in the BIOS and in Windows drive management as the correct drive type and size?

While it DOES boot, and you can get INTO Windows, have you run a drive health SMART check. That would be a good place to start. Chances are good you may find there are issues with the drive on a health check. I'd download and install Samsung magician and see what the health check there says.
 

1tapace

Prominent
Dec 4, 2017
8
0
520
Hello, thank you for responding and attempting to help me. The drive was purchased new from a 3rd party vendor on Amazon from a company called "ideabuy" back in February of 2017. Here is an image of the top of the drive. View: https://imgur.com/oTwfkeW
The drive does show up in the BIOS when it is working and is functioning fine. However, when it is not working normally it does not show up in BIOS and I cant check the Windows drive management of course since I cannot access Windows. I have not run a SMART check before BUT I have taken my PC to a computer store for a diagnosis and they did run some tests on the SSD to see if it was working properly and I will post the results here: View: https://imgur.com/a/syb3Z87
From here I am not sure what to do. I am not an advanced enough user to know what else the issue could be besides something physically wrong with the SSD.
 

1tapace

Prominent
Dec 4, 2017
8
0
520
UPDATE: I have contacted Samsung directly and it looks like the SSD is still under warranty. I will be sending it back and hopefully, this will fix my issue. I apologize to anybody in the future having this same issue down the road. Also, thank you for the help darkbreeze.
 
Yes, this is likely an issue with the drive itself. Also, for future reference, selecting your own post as the best answer, is, ........well, you can't do that. Because, reasons. It's against the forum rules and guidelines. Just so you are aware.

In the future also, even if this is a valid product purchase, I'd try to stick to buying directly from Amazon. Many of the 3rd party vendors on Amazon and a lot of them on Ebay, are less than reputable if you know what I mean. I've seen plenty of Amazon 3rd party drive purchases where the labels were swapped on a cheaper product that looked similar, or for example, a 1TB label slapped on a 250GB drive. It happens. Best to protect yourself by buying from a guaranteed seller that is completely legit. Safer that way.
 
Solution