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  1. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    I can be rather late to the party on some tech fronts. Case in point, I had an earlier Intel SSD (my first SSD) unopened in its box for nearly 3 years, and just began to put it through its paces a couple months ago. Since then, I had made considerable progress in setting it up the way I wanted it, as a potential boot drive. But it was on spare hardware, as an Off & On experiment.

    Today it was just running when I touched the front of the computer -- a plastic section, I think, not even metal -- when there was a small spark of static electricity. Don't really expect this in the summertime, particularly while it has been fairly humid, rather than dry. As static electricity sparks go, I'd rate this a 2 out of 10: I've experienced far worse. Anyway, the screen went black, the computer rebooted, and there was just that "No Boot Drive" found, "Insert Installation Disk" error. (Approx. I think that was the one, but I could double-check . . . ) The drive still vibrates the way it did before when running, but I suspect that it is toast. I booted up a good diagnostic & repair CD (a couple different ones, actually), and the drive is now NOT SEEN at all.

    What tool might best be used to ascertain whether this drive is still functional, and then to lift off any contents that might be accessed ?

    This was on a desktop system. I gotta say that I've had more like a 7 or 8 level of static spark happen before, where it did not seem to faze a regular mechanical HDD. If this is a good indication of how easily an SSD can get trashed, then I think I may be done with them -- no matter where the industry is going. I realize there may be little choice now in regard to laptops, but I'm glad that I obtained some replacement mechanical HDDs for my laptops, awhile back.
    When in Las Vegas, don't miss the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ -- with over 150 tables from 6+ decades of this quintessentially American art form.
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  2. Does it boot up with a HDD? Your motherboard could be the true casualty here. It's also possible your CMOS battery happened to fail at that exact moment. Just mentioning it because you need to assume NOTHING.
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  3. Dinosaur Supervisor KarMa's Avatar
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    I've touched the corner of my boot HDD in winter, and guess gave it a shock. Which caused the OS to seemingly still function in RAM but nothing could be gotten off the HDD and programs quickly stopped responding. It was like a zombie, still alive but nothing was there. After a reboot it was fine. Same kind of thing has happened when burning a Bluray, as the disc drive and the boot drive share the same 12V wire and guess the disc drive caused a voltage drop. But a reboot fixed it.

    I personally just run a live DVD of Fedora (Linux OS) when dealing with Windows trouble, trying to look at problem drives, or maybe moving files around.
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  4. Member darkknight145's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Seeker47 View Post
    The drive still vibrates the way it did before when running, but I suspect that it is toast.
    ??????.... SSD drives don't vibrate! there's no moving parts.
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    try removing the battery on the motherboard and reset the bios.
    see if your computer will boot up.
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  6. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by darkknight145 View Post
    Originally Posted by Seeker47 View Post
    The drive still vibrates the way it did before when running, but I suspect that it is toast.
    ??????.... SSD drives don't vibrate! there's no moving parts.
    I used that term kinda loosely, because I know there is nothing like a platter there to spin -- couldn't think of a better word to use, offhand. What I meant is that when putting a hand on it, it feels like it is actively doing what it did before, in terms of being ON.

    I will look into the other suggestions (CMOS battery, etc.) as soon as I can, and report back. The button battery on this computer is situated in one of the most inconvenient places to access . . . . One thing I should be able to do more directly, and which may be more immediately revealing, is to connect that SSD to a known-working computer as an external. If it still is not seen, that would seem to offer a grim prognosis.

    But . . . if it was the CMOS or the BIOS or the MB that got whacked, I should not have been able to boot up this rig from that Linux-based diagnostic & repair disk, at all. Right ?
    Last edited by Seeker47; 9th Aug 2017 at 12:28.
    When in Las Vegas, don't miss the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ -- with over 150 tables from 6+ decades of this quintessentially American art form.
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  7. I used that term kinda loosely, because I know there is nothing like a platter there to spin -- couldn't think of a better word to use, offhand. What I meant is that when putting a hand on it, it feels like it is actively doing what it did before, in terms of being ON.
    As already stated an SSD has no moving parts so you shouldn't be able to feel anything from it. I suspect you are feeling vibrations from something else being transferred through the case/drive mount.

    If the SSD is vibrating itself then it probably is beyond help.
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  8. Electrons do vibrate you know.
    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -Carl Sagan
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    It's the tiny Nandies, tirelessly toiling away.

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  10. There is no tactile indication whatsoever on an SSD drive whether it is running, or not. ZERO moving parts.

    The section of the case you touched was either metal, covered in metallic paint, or had metal immediately under or next to where you touched it. Otherwise, nothing would have happened.

    If you are in an environment where static sparks are possible, always, Always, ALWAYS, touch the bare metal of the power supply while plugged in to dissipate any static charge. PC electronics are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE to such discharges.

    You should change the misleading post title, your experience is not indicative in any way of SSD drives fragility, this was user error, pure and simple.
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  11. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Nelson37 View Post
    There is no tactile indication whatsoever on an SSD drive whether it is running, or not. ZERO moving parts.

    The section of the case you touched was either metal, covered in metallic paint, or had metal immediately under or next to where you touched it. Otherwise, nothing would have happened.

    If you are in an environment where static sparks are possible, always, Always, ALWAYS, touch the bare metal of the power supply while plugged in to dissipate any static charge. PC electronics are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE to such discharges.

    You should change the misleading post title, your experience is not indicative in any way of SSD drives fragility, this was user error, pure and simple.
    [EDIT: Well I thought I had changed the thread title, but it would not stick. How do I go about doing that ?]

    User error -- yeah, I suppose.

    As I mentioned: I did not come close to touching this SSD directly. I have (inadvertently) transmitted much stronger static shocks to mechanical HDDs a few times -- directly -- without anything like this happening. This is something I would normally be on the lookout for in the Winter, or when it is very dry; haven't previously noticed a propensity for static discharge during humid, Summer weather. In that respect, this is a first.

    I can't even gain access to the power supply without opening the case. What I'm doing now is first touching a metal grill on one of the external speakers. That does have some connection to the system though, so maybe I should look to some other, completely unconnected metal object on my desk for this.

    However, the basic conclusion remains. From this standpoint, I don't think that the SSDs are anywhere near as hardy as the older type HDDs. And that does not incline me towards placing any more reliance on them. I don't want to be working with something where you can have the smallest slip-up, and it's curtains.
    When in Las Vegas, don't miss the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ -- with over 150 tables from 6+ decades of this quintessentially American art form.
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    So you had ONE bad SSD and now you conclude that ALL SSDs are more fragile than hard disk drives? That's quite a hasty generalization.
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  13. I've only ever had 2, both bought about 5 years ago and in daily use ever since then, 1 for between 2-3 hours average and the other 6-8 hours.

    I was a little nervous at first after reading lots of 'advice' on the internet about having to handle them carefully and set your systems up with lots of 'special' SSD tweaks, etc., etc., etc. After a couple of OS reinstalls I got fed up of the extra hassle so other than whatever Windows sets up by default I have treated them as if they were any other drive. I know this will be shocking for many, but I defrag them regularly as well!

    Both are the main boot and application drive, neither was particularly high spec or expensive, and both are still reporting 100% health and estimated remaining lifetime of nearly 8 years, despite both PC cases being frequently opened and parts swapped or reinstalled, including the drives themselves.
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  14. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by JVRaines View Post
    So you had ONE bad SSD and now you conclude that ALL SSDs are more fragile than hard disk drives? That's quite a hasty generalization.
    You may be right -- I don't really know.

    But I currently have around a couple dozen active HDDs (incl. portable ones) in some degree of service, and have not lost one to mechanical failure in several years. That extends through some brownouts, blackouts & surges, and other mishaps. (Casualties of those include one DVDR and one Monster power block.) A fair amount of work went into what was on that SSD. Based on that, I'm kinda hesitant to roll the dice again on an SSD for a desktop rig. Even if they were free -- which they certainly are not -- my time and effort is worth something.

    The good news is that I found Acronis images of that SSD from June & July, which had gone missing to the point I was starting to wonder whether I had ever even made them -- so I'm not quite as screwed on this as seemed to be the case at the start of this thread.
    When in Las Vegas, don't miss the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ -- with over 150 tables from 6+ decades of this quintessentially American art form.
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    @Seeker47

    Out of curiosity, did you ever test the drive on another PC(s) to confirm it's really dead?

    As for the fragility of SSDs, I view them as any other storage medium (HDD, optical discs, tape, etc)...they WILL FAIL (usually at the worst moment) and that's why we have backups.

    I've gone through the transition from floppies to HDDs and there are some here who have gone from punch cards to magnetic media. Each generation of new storage has it's naysayers stating "it's not as good as xxx". That's why we have backups!
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