SSD boot drive dead... Sort of?

[Yuri-G]

Came back to my PC at one point this weekend and it had green screened while I was gone. Reset it and the bios kept telling me I need to select a valid boot drive. After a little fiddling I can tell the bios recognizes my SSD, but can't do anything with it.

Problem: SSD is the only drive with Windows on it.

Solution (?) Buy Windows 10. Install on my regular hard drive (where I kept all my data). Use that to see if I can fix the SSD; buy a new SSD if necessary.

Does that sound about right or is there a better way of fixing this issue? I don't have access to another computer at moment.

Bonus round: If I buy Windows and install it on my normal hard drive, then end up buying a new SSD, can I install Windows on the SSD too without buying it again? Seems like having Windows on both drives would avoid this problem in the future. Plus SSD as boot drive is God level quick

[Isiolia]

May want to try cycling the power on the SSD ( like suggested here ).


You shouldn't have any trouble installing to different hard drives and having Windows activate, as long as it's still the same machine.

[Yuri-G]

hmm, I tried that just now - but now the bios isn't seeing the SSD at all. yikes


not 100% sure I have it plugged in correctly but I had to go to work - plan is when I get home, make sure I'm hooking it up correctly. if the bios still won't recognize it -> buy new SSD and copy of windows. if I can get the bios to recognize it -> power cycle -> if that doesn't work, buy SSD and windows.

[synistar]

Check if the current SATA port is dead by swapping it with an open one. You do need to make sure you go into BIOS and redo your boot order so it starts from the right SATA port. Then you can rule out a dead SSD.

[Yuri-G]

well that was annoying.


turns out the cage that holds the SSD is faulty and caused random loss of power/connectivity (this is my best guess). could not get the bios to recognize the SSD until I took it out of the cage. SSD was still fried due to aforementioned random loss of power/connectivity (naturally) so I had to go into diskpart via command prompt via windows DVD lol. but it worked! I was able to reinstall Windows 8 on my SSD. one random reboot within the first five minutes but I'm going to hope that was just because I haven't reinstalled all my drivers yet.


only shit part is now I have to re-upgrade to Windows 10. :/ well, that and my SSD is literally sitting outside the case on a stack of PS3 games. and I have to reinstall all the aforementioned drivers.


but still. repaired it without paying a cent!

[orinthia]

Might be worth getting a win10 iso for the future: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

If the drive cage is causing power issues, I hope there's no actual current being passed into the case's metal. Maybe a frayed/pinched cord somewhere (think low voltage, like from a fan or hdd connector)? Just a thought; I've never seen this before.

[Yuri-G]

eh, it might not be the drive cage after all. several bugs since I reinstalled windows:

- random restarts out of nowhere. so far has only happened twice.
- randomly booting up twice instead of once. booted up, windows loading, restart for no apparent reason, login fine.
- random freezes. seems to occur only when using Google Chrome? I reinstalled Chrome and haven't seen it again, but I'm wary. what was interesting about this was that Chrome froze the operating system too; i.e. I couldn't bring up task manager via right-click or cntl-alt-del to shut Chrome down. and when I powered down manually (with the power button on the case), the computer would unfreeze right before powering off. so Chrome would unfreeze suddenly, task manager would show up, and then of course the whole thing would shut down.


when I was reinstalling everything and taking the rig apart, I also noticed one odd issue: sometimes the lights on the front of the case would flash and the CPU fan would repeatedly attempt to spin like it was trying to do something, but couldn't. basically like a pulse of power was going through the machine once every second or so. I made sure all the connections were solid and unplugged the SSD cage and didn't see this problem occur again.


I'm not too concerned; at least I have Windows 10 back up and running. but it's looking like I may not get out of this without spending some money after all. if it's the power source, that would make sense - there wasn't enough power at one point, the SSD got fried, and it explains the restarts now too. the only other potential cause I can think of is the mobo? I do have the SSD running outside of the case, literally just connected to the SATA cables and resting on a stack of books - but I don't think that would cause any problems.


my money is on power source, but I'm not a hardware man. also wondering if it might not be the source itself, but rather one of the connections along the way. anyone else got thoughts?

[Zetanio]

PSU or MoBo. For all those different things to be going wrong. I'd bet on PSU.

[orinthia]

Yeah, your power issues are too clustered and becoming common. There could also be a short somewhere since the machine is turning on randomly, but I would lean more on the psu being a likely problem. If you have a known working spare psu somewhere or can borrow one, maybe just try powering with minimum stuff hooked up and run a game benchmark (like with just intel integrated).

Also, what kind of case is this? Didn't think you'd ever be plugging in a drive cage like you're mentioning. Do you mean it's just attached to the case or is it something that actually has a plug? And you're sure the little power, reset, etc button leads are on the right pins (can sometimes be embarrassingly easy to mix them up )?

[Yuri-G]

the SSD cage has a four-pin connector, and I assume inside it connects to the SSDs themselves (it seats two) via SATA. honestly it's kind of a meh case; I think I want to get a new one. (one that fits my coolermaster please >_> been running without a side panel for years now)


tried to boot up last night, everything booted fine as far as I could tell but no display. smacked the computer in my frustration and it started working again, although now it makes some interesting grinding noises when booting up (yeah, that's why we don't hit our computers).


the leads are definitely in the right place. they are not very firmly in place though; I've been uncomfortable with those connections since day one. this mobo felt a little janky out of the box.


what would you guys do here? I don't have a spare psu; I really wish I did because that would make diagnosis so much easier. I could a) replace either one and see if that helps, b) replace both, or c) just make sure everything seems to be connected as well as possible and hold off on replacing either. problem with option c) is that if the computer totally shits the bed (and I don't doubt that it will eventually), I'll be without one until I get new parts - which is not acceptable lol


tempted to just replace mobo, psu, and case - I have the money. but it feels wasteful and I ain't that rich.


(also figured out the Chrome thing; it's a well-known problem with Chrome and Windows 10. so that is unrelated, thankfully.)


for reference, here is the mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128444


and here is the psu:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...p?EdpNo=422166

[orinthia]

Ah, mobo has a bit of age on it (looking at the oldest newegg reviews, it's from 2010-ish). It could be nearing its end of life. Maybe make some plans on some new components, like with pcpartpicker, and see if you have a microcenter nearby (their intel cpu+mobo deals are usually great). You can hold out for a while but I wouldn't trust the machine with anything super important.

When you smacked the machine, it may have jarred stuff in their sockets. Maybe see about reseating the vid card and ram, making sure they're completely pushed and locked in (be careful, vid card has a lock tab that needs to be pressed to release the card normally, use a chop stick or something if it's in an awkward spot).

[Yuri-G]

today it did the same thing; seemingly booted up but won't display an image. fiddled around in the case, nothing seemed to be loose, turned it on again - worked fine. so I think your assessment is spot-on; it's ok for now but not worth using for any serious projects.


I will probably replace the mobo first, since it's pretty old as you said. no harm in replacing it even if that's not the source of the problem. then the psu next if problems continue. I don't want a cpu/mobo combo tho; this cpu seems to be pretty stellar for the price and is still doing everything I want it to do. same for the gfx. not looking forward to taking the whole rig apart and putting it back together, but them's the breaks.


also think I'll get a second SSD and backup my first SSD onto that in case something similar happens again, so I don't have to deal with reinstalling windows and all that.


thanks for your help orinthia; you have given me some good guidance on this issue.

[orinthia]

1-2 gen old stuff can be a little cheaper nowadays, so keep an eye out for sales. About the only real thing to look into current gen would be gpu, both nvidia and amd have made big strides recently in power usage and price/performance (gtx 1060 and rx 470 are awesome values should the desire arise).

A friend's old pc started doing something similar last year, you could power it on but it randomly wouldn't post (couldn't get to bios or windows, it would never load). After a while it wouldn't post for 20+ minutes of power cycling, so it was time heh. I never did figure one what had actually failed, it just wasn't worth it since it was old enough hardware that any upgrade would be pretty significant (like from 2008-9-ish, apparently ran windows vista like a dream though until its deathpost).

[Yuri-G]

yeah it sparked the other day when I plugged in a mouse o.O that was fun. I thought it was dead but unplug/replug and it kept going. jesus this machine is unstoppable.


so at this point definitely getting a new case, power supply, and motherboard. I'll look into those gfx suggestions too, can't hurt to look. we have definitely reached the point of "not sure what's wrong but [x y z] can all be replaced anyway, so fuck it." lol

[Yuri-G]

fascinating! last night I was having some issues with the computer freezing up as per usual. what was odd: FFXIV would still work... but wouldn't load certain things. for example, I tried to hand in the rusty pick and hammer to whats-his-face and it showed that I had both items, but one of the icons was blank and it wouldn't let me trade it. FFXIV itself was not frozen; it worked perfectly fine aside from that bug. once the froze broke and the computer started moving again, I was able to trade both items.


I have never in my life seen hardware affect software quite this way. definitely going for a new mobo and PSU (and PSU is going to be like, a few tiers above what I need just for safety's sake) but in the meantime, I am baffled and intrigued by the way my machine is working. as long as it doesn't completely die again, I'm actually fine with this. it's new and interesting!


my best guess: the PSU just isn't putting out enough power and while the machine can maintain operation, it sometimes just can't quite get where you want it to go. I have no idea if that's even possible, but that's why it's called a guess.