SSD formatted for the second time by itself, what's actually happening?

[Dipta Pradnyana]

This case was happening once back then in 2015 when the ssd is a half year old (glad I did save my school tasks on cloud). Today I just started my computer and it prompt "Reboot an select boot device" immediately I checked boot list on BIOS and I couldn't find my Samsung 850 EVO on the list. I did double check the cable, replacing the cable, nor plug the cable on different SATA slot and still no result. Strangely the HDD and disc drive showed up on the list. (Yes I did tried to use their sata/power cable, but no result). About to tinker it but I don't want to make any worse. I was totaly sure my ssd formatted by itself like it was. Therefore, I tried to boot my flashdrive with bootable windows 10 in it to check if I'm not wrong. It was so strange it almost takes an hour on the Windows screen with loading circle and it also took too long time everytime I click Next on the setup especially when creating partition (almost an hour). Anyhow turns out there's 232gb unallocated space with the same size of free space (this is my ssd), meaning I am correct my, ssd is formatted

I was hoping if I could saves my data, but yeah nothing I could do
I use my computer as a normal usage, since I'm in college I haven't enough time to play games, eventhough if I have, I used them to browsing and watching movies nothing really hard never even touch its peak performance.

So my question are,
-Why did my ssd formatting itself? is it defect?
-Did a virus does this? because I only use windows defender (never download anything shady from the internet
-Is windows itself does this? because the last time I used my computer it keeps prompting a message to activate my windows
-Once my hdd did not showing up on windows explorer, I have to restart my computer for several times to makes it available on windows explorer, what's happened?

I need an answer and suggestion so I could avoid this problem in the future
Thank you in advance

 

[The Paladin]

1. a hardware device doesn't do anything unless its told to do it... answering your question, virus is a possibility
2. that your SSD/HDD does not show up in Bios has nothing to do with Windows, but everything with your hardware, motherboard issue possible, do you have the latest firmware for your Bios ?

 

[Solandri]

Agreed with the above. If the drive isn't showing up in the BIOS, you have a hardware problem. It could be a problem with the motherboard, the SATA port, the SATA cable, the SATA port on the drive, or the drive. In my experience, most of the time the problem is the cable or the motherboard's SATA ports. The problem has almost entirely disappeared for me when I switched to SATA cables with clips on the computers I build/repair (went from a half dozen times a year, to once in 6 years).

As to how it happens, it could be a virus. Or because it's a SSD it could be that a bad SATA connection inadvertently commanded the SSD to think the blocks containing the MBR or GPT table was safe to erase. SSDs are different from HDDs in that they can't overwrite existing data with new data. The old data first has to be erased before new data can be written. This erase step is very slow, so normally the SSD does it in the background. Once the MBR or GPT table is gone, the drive will look like it's unformatted even if old data is still there.

Also, your USB flash drive is probably slow to load up Windows because it has terrible 4k read/write speeds. Most cheap flash drives have high sequential speeds so they can advertise it as a fast drive. Sequential is fine if you're copying large files to it like movies. But for an OS, games, or small files like Office documents and config files, you want high 4k speeds.

A typical hard drive has 4k speeds around 1 MB/s. A poor flash drive can have 4k speeds as low as 0.006 MB/s, and can take an hour to do something which takes a few seconds on a HDD. Currently, the Sandisk Extreme (CZ80) and Sandisk Extreme Pro (CZ88) USB flash drives have the best 4k speeds without resorting to a flash drive with a SSD controller. About 10 MB/s (yes they boot Windows faster than a hard drive).

 

[Dipta Pradnyana]

1. a hardware device doesn't do anything unless its told to do it... answering your question, virus is a possibility
2. that your SSD/HDD does not show up in Bios has nothing to do with Windows, but everything with your hardware, motherboard issue possible, do you have the latest firmware for your Bios ?

It's the same firmware from the factory since 2014, I don't find updating the bios would do good for me because it's tricky and has pros/cons I better not to take a risk, But if I still cannot fix my current problem I think I will go for it.

Right now, I'm still trying to installing windows 10 on my ssd but still has no result. The problem is on creating a partition on my ssd but it prompted an error: 0x8007045d. I still figuring out the problem without progress so far. Tried to use dban but couldn't find my ssd to be wiped, only detected my flashdrive.

 

[Dipta Pradnyana]

Agreed with the above. If the drive isn't showing up in the BIOS, you have a hardware problem. It could be a problem with the motherboard, the SATA port, the SATA cable, the SATA port on the drive, or the drive. In my experience, most of the time the problem is the cable or the motherboard's SATA ports. The problem has almost entirely disappeared for me when I switched to SATA cables with clips on the computers I build/repair (went from a half dozen times a year, to once in 6 years).

As to how it happens, it could be a virus. Or because it's a SSD it could be that a bad SATA connection inadvertently commanded the SSD to think the blocks containing the MBR or GPT table was safe to erase. SSDs are different from HDDs in that they can't overwrite existing data with new data. The old data first has to be erased before new data can be written. This erase step is very slow, so normally the SSD does it in the background. Once the MBR or GPT table is gone, the drive will look like it's unformatted even if old data is still there.

Also, your USB flash drive is probably slow to load up Windows because it has terrible 4k read/write speeds. Most cheap flash drives have high sequential speeds so they can advertise it as a fast drive. Sequential is fine if you're copying large files to it like movies. But for an OS, games, or small files like Office documents and config files, you want high 4k speeds.

A typical hard drive has 4k speeds around 1 MB/s. A poor flash drive can have 4k speeds as low as 0.006 MB/s, and can take an hour to do something which takes a few seconds on a HDD. Currently, the Sandisk Extreme (CZ80) and Sandisk Extreme Pro (CZ88) USB flash drives have the best 4k speeds without resorting to a flash drive with a SSD controller. About 10 MB/s (yes they boot Windows faster than a hard drive).

I'm a half sure if my motherboard's sata port is the problem. My hdd and disc drive can be detected by bios, I've tried to plugged them in all of the sata port they still showed up on the boot order list. Also I tried to use theirs sata/power cable on the ssd, no result. And I tried it again with other sata cable still won't working. Do you think I should get a new sata cable?

I use Corsair Slider 3.0 this quite a fast flashdrive, last time I installed a windows 10 on my laptop with this it was really fast. Usually it only takes some blinks if I needed to transfer couple mb of files so yeah it seems flashdrive has no problem with it.

One thing again, my motherboard is MSI H97 PC Mate, do you think updating bios will fix this issue?

 

[gasaraki]

Agreed with the above. If the drive isn't showing up in the BIOS, you have a hardware problem. It could be a problem with the motherboard, the SATA port, the SATA cable, the SATA port on the drive, or the drive. In my experience, most of the time the problem is the cable or the motherboard's SATA ports. The problem has almost entirely disappeared for me when I switched to SATA cables with clips on the computers I build/repair (went from a half dozen times a year, to once in 6 years).

As to how it happens, it could be a virus. Or because it's a SSD it could be that a bad SATA connection inadvertently commanded the SSD to think the blocks containing the MBR or GPT table was safe to erase. SSDs are different from HDDs in that they can't overwrite existing data with new data. The old data first has to be erased before new data can be written. This erase step is very slow, so normally the SSD does it in the background. Once the MBR or GPT table is gone, the drive will look like it's unformatted even if old data is still there.

Also, your USB flash drive is probably slow to load up Windows because it has terrible 4k read/write speeds. Most cheap flash drives have high sequential speeds so they can advertise it as a fast drive. Sequential is fine if you're copying large files to it like movies. But for an OS, games, or small files like Office documents and config files, you want high 4k speeds.

A typical hard drive has 4k speeds around 1 MB/s. A poor flash drive can have 4k speeds as low as 0.006 MB/s, and can take an hour to do something which takes a few seconds on a HDD. Currently, the Sandisk Extreme (CZ80) and Sandisk Extreme Pro (CZ88) USB flash drives have the best 4k speeds without resorting to a flash drive with a SSD controller. About 10 MB/s (yes they boot Windows faster than a hard drive).

I'm a half sure if my motherboard's sata port is the problem. My hdd and disc drive can be detected by bios, I've tried to plugged them in all of the sata port they still showed up on the boot order list. Also I tried to use theirs sata/power cable on the ssd, no result. And I tried it again with other sata cable still won't working. Do you think I should get a new sata cable?

I use Corsair Slider 3.0 this quite a fast flashdrive, last time I installed a windows 10 on my laptop with this it was really fast. Usually it only takes some blinks if I needed to transfer couple mb of files so yeah it seems flashdrive has no problem with it.

One thing again, my motherboard is MSI H97 PC Mate, do you think updating bios will fix this issue?

If you think it's the SATA ports just unplug the working disc drives and plug your SSD in to those and then you'll know if it was the other SATA port that went bad... If it's not the SATA port then it's probably the SSD. Not being able to install Windows on it is a bad sign.

 

[rcald2000]

+Dipta Pradnyana Hello. Where to start....

Windows prompts for activation: It would only do this if your copy of Windows was not activated. Where did you obtain the license key? I'm not the Microsoft police, but I'm simply trying to get to the solution. I've seen a slew of unsolvable problems from unactivated copies of the Windows OS, regardless if the licenses were legit or not. Is this the very first time that you've received this not activated prompt, or it's been an issue from day one?

SSD firmware not updated: This is huge mistake. After following my suggestion below of running the check disk repair, then please download Samsung Magician (http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools.html). It'll prompt you to automatically update the firmware, and you should allow it to do so. The process is automatic and there is no hassle involved in the process.

Summary: I have no idea what caused your data to go missing. If your copy of Windows was originally activated, but no longer is, it's possible that an infection is the culprit. No easy way to know. I honestly didn't know that you could format a storage device with an active OS on it. The most likely cause in my mind is the non updated firmware on the SSD. Question: Was the drive truly showing as a freshly formatted device, or as unformatted? A corrupted partition table could cause such a problem. Were it me, I would connect this SSD as a secondary drive to another system. I would take care not to write or install any data to the drive before doing this. I would run a chkdsk /r (check disk repair) on the SSD's drive letter. I believe that this should repair the partition table, and anything else that's damaged. If based on what you see, there is no way to recover your SSD's data, then please be sure to download and install Samsung Magician and allow it to update the drives firmware. That is crucial.