Question SSD unnalocated after shutdown

[Tenn01]

I have a secondary, empty 128Gb SSD which I was planning to use to support the system. I format and partition it and it survives a reboot, but it'll be shown as 'unallocated' in Windows Disk Manager or any other software after a full shutdown.
Intel I5-11400 sitting on a Gigabyte B460M DS3H V2 (rev. 1.0) with H470 chipset(weird naming, right?), latest BIOS, running Windows 10
SSD Sandisk 128Gb:
S.M.A.R.T says its perfect (WD Dashboard says 89% health remaining)
No defective sectors. Ran chkdsk /r /f /x and nothing to report
Formatted and wiped it through
Swapped SATA cables various times, used cable I know are working perfectly, cable's fine. Tried different SATA ports on MB.
Uninstalled device on safe mode, driver, chipset drivers, reinstalled everythin, problem persists. Tried from Intel AHCI SATA to Intel RST to Windows standard SATA drivers. Nothing fixes
Never disappeared from BIOS, tried and tested every possible BIOS config from power management to hotplug. Problem not here
Disabled superfetch, virtual memory or anything that Windows could be doing with it. No good.
DMDE gives me a full blank 'unallocated' sector, even with a thorough scan. I've read many posts suggesting a 'undelete' would fix it but the option is always greyed out as there's nothing to recover

The only 'clue' I get is a log on Windows events:
Device SCSI\Disk&Ven_ATA&Prod_SanDisk_SDSSDP12\4&2c9020cd&0&000300 was not migrated due to partial or ambiguous match.

Last Device Instance Id: SCSI\Disk&Ven_WDC&Prod_WD20EZAZ-00GGJB0\4&29d0445f&0&000200
Class Guid: {4d36e967-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
Location Path:
Migration Rank: 0xF000FC000000F120
Present: false

WD20EZAZ that's my 2Tb HDD. How are they related?
I am convinced problem is related to Windows.
Please help me sort this out. Just tell me what else could I possibly do as Im running out of ideas. Thank you very much in advance.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Please help me sort this out. Just tell me what else could I possibly do as Im running out of ideas.

Disable fast boot in BIOS and
disable fast startup in windows.

How old is this SSD?
Can you show screenshot from HDtune health? (upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[Tenn01]

Disable fast boot in BIOS and
disable fast startup in windows.

How old is this SSD?
Can you show screenshot from HDtune health? (upload to imgur.com and post link)

Both disabled. Hibernation, pagefile, superfetch. Dude I nuked all services

It is quite old. My plan for it was to use it to boost HDDs, pagefile, anything a SSD would perform better than a HDD. Windows is installed on a 500Gb NVME SSD

https://imgur.com/a/9dkGgz3

View: https://imgur.com/a/9dkGgz3


Edit: rechecked everything youve mentioned. Progblem persists. Ive partitioned SSD in 3 parts before shutting down, now rescanning with DMDE to see if I can find anything at all

Rescan results. Nada on LBA1 or anywhere. Blank

https://imgur.com/6eaTjUO

View: https://imgur.com/6eaTjUO

https://imgur.com/PuJ6Gqc

View: https://imgur.com/PuJ6Gqc

 

[SkyNetRising]

Oh - that's really old model. From ~ year 2013 ?

BTW - you can not disable pagefile. This introduces $hitload of problems.
Pagefile must be enabled, set it to small initial size (1GB) and larger max size (8GB for example).

 

[Tenn01]

It is old but it didnt get much use. My previous computer had only Windows 10 and a few installs on it. Never exceeded 50% of its capacity. Hardly trimmed and when I did it was manually.
I simply disabled pagefile for this specific SSD and just to ensure that wasn't what was influencing with it.

Dashboard gives me 89% of health left

https://imgur.com/pgEaQyT

View: https://imgur.com/pgEaQyT


CrystalDisk gives me 75%

https://imgur.com/EufohAn

View: https://imgur.com/EufohAn


Is a discrepancy between tools normal?

 

[Deleted member 14196]

No that is not normal. Try the SSD in another PC and see what you can see

 

[SkyNetRising]

Diagnostic software is not showing it, but it may seem, SSD has reached end of life.

Try copying couple GB of data onto it and check, if total host writes increase.

 

[Tenn01]

No that is not normal. Try the SSD in another PC and see what you can see

I dont have another pc with SATA ports.

Downloaded HD Sentinel to be a 3rd opinion

https://imgur.com/lk9ZpZm

View: https://imgur.com/lk9ZpZm


No use of reallocated sector count. No errors for S.M.A.R.T.

BEFORE data transfer ~20Gb

https://imgur.com/CyvuSRM

View: https://imgur.com/CyvuSRM


AFTER data transfer (LBA written has changed, files open normally)

https://imgur.com/8eFItVH

View: https://imgur.com/8eFItVH

 

[SkyNetRising]

AFTER data transfer (LBA written has changed, files open normally)

But after reboot all partitions and data disappear. Right?
So disk writes are being cached and do not get saved to the drive.

Try disabling write caching to the drive.

 

[Tenn01]

But after reboot all partitions and data disappear. Right?
So disk writes are being cached and do not get saved to the drive.

Try disabling write caching to the drive.

We're getting close

Partitioned SSD, copied a 8 Gb movie, watchable
Rebooted, still there, still working
So I shutdown and it disappears again.
I reformat it, do as advised 'disabling write caching to the drive' and...

It disappeared from BIOS. And computer wont turn on while its connected(10 minutes on the Gigabyte logo). Connecting after computer is on(both SSD and mobo support hotplug) doesnt show anything.

Will try and restart again.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

your ssd has most likly passed into the GREAT DIGITAL BEYOND, may it rest in peace

https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/why-did-ssd-disappear-from-system

 

[Tenn01]

your ssd has most likly passed into the GREAT DIGITAL BEYOND, may it rest in peace

Doesn't turn on with it plugged in anymore. Takes a long time jusdt to show BIOS options. Intel RST instead of AHCI on BIOS didnt help. But science didn't advance by giving up on it
Just called store they're delivering an external SATA-USB bay with separate power source in the next 2 hours or so
Will update soon

 

[Deleted member 14196]

nice, that article i posted says to do that, i would have suggested an enclosure for usb so you can at least see if it's funcitonal on other devices. if it is, update the firmware on the SSD and try it again in PC and reenable that write cache.
https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/why-did-ssd-disappear-from-system

 

[Tenn01]

Did a bunch of testing.
It works on different computers, for any task, as long as there's an active power source. When computer restarts it never loses its power however when you turn off it dies. Worked flawlessly with the external SATA but if you plug it out, resets to blank. Nothing shows on DMDE

1. What component/software controls this energy 'persistence'?
2. So it dies and write caching is disabled. BIOS won't recognize it and Windows seems stuck trying to figure out what is the SSD. I have to plug it into the external drive to enable write caching. Why? What causes it?

 

[Deleted member 14196]

then the power control stuff on the drive is bad, making it useless.

did you try to update the SSD firmware? might fix it, maybe something got screwed up

 

[Tenn01]

Sandisk says 'use the Dashboard to update firmware' however I don't want to update. I want to reinstall it. It looks hard to find it for download so I can manually reinstall.

Reading in this link makes me think that either some capacitor burned out or some other part. Lets hope its software. https://www.kingston.com/en/solutions/servers-data-centers/ssd-power-loss-protection

Im receptive to any ideas, however crazy they may sound. Losing it isnt a problem

 

[SkyNetRising]

Doesn't seem to be worth the trouble. Time to retire it.