Question about SSD and boot up

[KMac]

Sorry for the length of this post, but it will be necessary to explain what I am seeing. I purchased a Samsung 850 EVO SSD (500 gb) about 18 months ago. I installed it into my Samsung laptop, along with new RAM. About 6 months ago, the computer had some issues and I bought a replacement, a Samsung Notebook 7 Spin. Before I bought it, I checked with Samsung to make sure there would be no compatibility issues with swapping the existing HDD out with my EVO SSD. They said it would be just fine.

Well, I cloned the "new" HDD (Toshiba) onto my Samsung 850 EVO and installed it. Everything was fine for about 3 months, then I started to get this random error on a restart or reboot: "All boot options are tried. Press <F4> key to recover with factory image using Recovery or any other keys for next loop iteration". When I pressed F4, the same error message would occur. So, I googled it and went into the bios settings and adjusted the start up/boot up according to others that have had this issue. I did the following: bios setting > boot> disabled secure boot>os made selection >cms and uefi os > save and exit..

This seemed to work for about 10 weeks, then about 2 weeks ago, it started again. Most of the time I could reboot it a few times and it would start up. But not this time. It wouldn't do anything but give me that same error message again. So, I get home and put the HDD back in the laptop and it is working fine. So I figure bad SSD, which is under warranty, by the way. I get out my Sabrent docking station to see if the drive is dead.. Well, when I plugged it up to my desktop, I am able to access all of the info on the EVO 850.

My question is this: If the SSD is bad, could I still access it through the docking station? Is it normal to be able to access something like this but it can't boot up for some reason?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions..

[DaveLembke]

Run Crystaldiskinfo on the system and check drive health. If the SSD has an issue it should be flagged in its S.M.A.R.T data which is hidden on the drive and that software can view its info for free.


https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

[KMac]

Thanks for the information. I will let you know what I find out.

[VintronNZ]

Looking at a video of your laptop hard drive installation it seems to use a white cable for the power and data, is it possible you damaged the cable when you installed the SSD making it intermittent ? Here is the utube video of someone swapping the hard drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYbN3saLAUA
Do you see the white cable these are very easy to damage. As well as the connector on the motherboard. 

If you run Crystaldiskinfo as DaveLembke suggested it does say in hex numbers the connects and disconnects a high number would suggest a damaged cable. An easier to understand report can be got with Hdsentinal.

https://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php

There is a free 30 day trial.

[KMac]

I downloaded and ran HD Sentinel and Window Smart Professional. Both returned that the SSD is good. No issues at all. I also ran windows disk check and it said the same thing.

Maybe something got corrupted in the bios somehow.

As far as damaging the power cable, no I didn't. It was a very simple/easy swap out. Also, I put the original HDD back in it and it is fine..

Should I format the SSD and clone it again? Give it another try?

[VintronNZ]

Yes I would re clone it again, great you kept the old hdd to do this.
Although this is unlikely to show anything it maybe an idea to run a surface scan on the SSD in HDsentinal which is under the disk menu, surface test if it passes then the drive is good. Do the whole drive not just the c partition.
Is Hdsentinal is saying the drive is 100% on the first screen? 

[KMac]

Yes, it is reporting fine. The free version of HD Sentinel doesn't offer the surface test.



[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]

[KMac]

Screen shot of HD Sentinel for Samsung EVO..


[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]

[VintronNZ]

Thanks for the info about the free version not giving the surface test. The drive looks it those images to be great. So a re image and see how it goes.
I still think the most likely cause is a intermittent connection on the white cable.

[KMac]

I am going to try it and see what happens.. I will let you know how it goes..

[KMac]

Okay, so I cloned the HDD and reinstalled the SSD. Worked fine for an hour or so until I set up the SSD performance software and had to restart the computer to have the changes (rapid mode) take effect. Sure enough, same error. Although this time I rebooted and it came right back up. So I ran crystalmark and it shows 100% good..

I just don't get what is going on.

[patio]

Sounds to me like the "performance" software is the culprit...

[BC_Programmer]

Another possibility could be the power supply, as it looks like you added the SSD and the other Hard drives are still installed- it could be the "straw that broke the camel's back" if it happens that the Power supply was quite near it's capacity. While I've not seen it involving SSDs, I have had instances where adding a third Hard Drive resulted in arbitrary boot failures as well as drives completely disappearing from the system while it was running (which resulted in a hard freeze if it was the boot drive, of course), and the problems all went away after the power supply was replaced.

[KMac]

I just don't know. It's Samsung Magician. It is used to check the performance and optimize the Samsung EVO for best performance. I have used it since getting the SSD, about 18 months ago.

One thing I have noticed, which probably means nothing, but the Interface is showing SATA 6.0Gb/s.. At other times it will read SATA 3.0Gb/s..

It is frustrating though...

[BC_Programmer]

That could suggest a problem with the cable, as Vintron noted. When the system boots the SSD and the Host Controller on the motherboard would negotiate a speed which involves some cursory testing of the capability of the Cable to determine speed. A poor cable, or one that is damaged could very easily fail to perform well enough for higher speeds to be negotiated- or could fail to work properly at all (thus not seeing the drive to boot from)).