[SOLVED] Windows 10 hangs and SATA SSD (temporarily) disappears from BIOS.

[megamarsvin]

I have a system dual booting Linux and Windows 10. After about 10-15 minutes of using Windows 10 the system hangs (no BSOD, just a completely unresponsive desktop.) After a soft reboot, the main SSD (/dev/sda) is missing from BIOS, and the system can't be booted. After a hard reboot (turn off the system completely and restart) the drive is visible in BIOS again and bootable.

If I boot to Linux, I don't have any problem. I can use the system for hours without issue. This makes it look to me like a Windows problem, not hardware.

The Windows and Linux system partitions are both on the main drive (i.e. the one that's the problem.)

To be sure I did replace the SATA cable and tried to plug the drive into a different SATA port, but it had no effect.

 

[viveknayyar007]

Hello

Please check if any Windows updates are available. Please also update the graphics card driver to its latest version.

You may also want to check for any latest BIOS update.

If the issue persists, please try rolling back the graphics driver to an earlier built and see if it helps.

If the problem is still there, please Run the SFC /SCANNOW Command for automatic solution.

Feel free to report back for any further assistance.

Cheers!!

 

[megamarsvin]

Hey, thanks for your reply!

My BIOS is up to date (as is the firmware of the SSD) The mobo is an AsRock Z77 Extreme4.

The gfx drivers are up to date as well, but I can try installing an older version, Geforce 970GTX fwiw.

I don't have access to the machine at the moment but next time I do, I'll see what happens with SFC /SCANNOW and report back!

 

[megamarsvin]

So it's been a while since I've had access to the system, but after trying the command above, I got the following result:

C:\Windows\system32>SFC /SCANNOW

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

Not long after that, the system crashed again as before.. I also checked the Windows system logs but besides the fact that an unexpected shutdown occurred it doesn't say anything.

 

[SkyNetRising]

What model SSD?
Check drive health with drive manufacturer tool.

 

[megamarsvin]

What model SSD?
Check drive health with drive manufacturer tool.

It's a Samsung EVO 840.

I did check SMART, I don't know enough about all of the ratings to know what they mean but the tool says "OK" for all of them. Which makes sense, since the drive works fine under Linux. If there was a hardware issue I'd expect to see it there too.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Check it with Samsung Magician. Make sure you have updated firmware.

 

[megamarsvin]

Ohh forgot to mention. Yeah I used Magician to check the SMART status, firmware was already the latest version.

 

[megamarsvin]

Alright well I ended up getting myself a new ssd. So far everything is working fine. Linux is now exclusively installed on the old Evo 840, Windows has the new Western Digital SSD all to itself. So far so good, been running Youtube and some games for the past +/- 4 hours and no sign of trouble.

So it's definitely something about the Evo 840 that Windows doesn't like but I'll be damned if I know what it is.