Worst Message From Windows?

I suggest a change of supplier. Or brand.

Next step. Install Linux

It's not failed, since it is evidently being detected just fine. Windows has just managed to mess up its filesystem.

The supplier in question being Microsoft.

I would try booting a Linux live USB on the machine and see if you can access the disc. I imagine the files are still there.

Theo

Ah. Linux has never messed up an SSD filesystem on me yet, not beyond recovery

Certainly could do that.

Might be that linux repair tools could repair it too.

Mini Tool Partition Wizard found 2 x partitions on it but said they were empty. In fact there should have been only one partition on it so I think it must be a spectacular SSD failure.

So far everything is working from the backup.

That is not how SSDs fail. They go two ways:

1. Completely fail to be detected. The SSD detected an internal anomaly and shut itself down
2. Read-only, ignoring all writes. This protects the data but can sometimes confuse filesystems which expect their writes to have taken place.

If there were valid empty partitions then software has screwed them up, ie wrote to them. Even if the SSD was scrambled (eg somebody deleted the encryption key) it wouldn't come up with valid partitions.

Theo

TestDisk is also worth taking a look at (not trivial to use though):

I've has some squeaky bum moments with mdadm/RAID ...

They weren't valid partitions, they were deleted yonks ago and replace by one partition that has disappeared.

It won't be storing any more data for me!

Well the worst message on DOS was "Non-system disk or disk error" when you leave a floppy in the drive and come in in the morning. It tries to boot from the floppy first (which typically won't be bootable) rather than the HD, making you think that the hard drive is corrupted.

Max Demian <max snipped-for-privacy@bigfoot.com wrote

Nothing even remotely like the worst because its so trivial to fix and PCs and laptops dont even have a floppy drive anymore and no one with any sense uses the floppy drive anymore even on an old dinosaur

There is a hex on me. The WD Blue I used as a replacement (itself a warranty replacement for a failed SSD) is giving a write speed of 17 MB/s. Surely they don't send defective SSDs as warranty replacements?

Too tired now, will go through the connectors tomorrow.

You have the knack.

There was a recent incident involving NVMe and Phison controllers, where the root cause was thought to be the shipment of "test firmware" in production NVMe sticks.

Your SSDs could be SATA ones or NVMe slabs.

Warranty return drives, can be "refurbished" drives, which for an SSD means it is worn to some extent. The same happens with warranty return HDD, they can be worn and from other customers. Refurbished means testing says they are working.

You can run CrystalDiskInfo on the device, and review the characteristics. You don't get much info in there, but it's a start.

The Linux smartmontools package and "smartctl -a" can be used to dump SMART info on the Linux platform. This can be run from a LiveDVD. There is also some extended log information that can be dumped. Which is not important, except when it is important.

Produkey.exe is "hackerware" not malware. You didn't read the message properly. It can be protected, by using 7ZIP and using AES encryption to make Windows Defender leave it alone. You can also define an exception for the thing, if you want to waste the time on the project. Similarly, some

As a result, yes, there is some amount of "noise" that comes from Windows Defender. The Microsoft practices seem to be intended to cause you to learn how to use the controls on it :-/

Summary: I don't give up on occurrences like this. I study them. I study them so I can determine if it is my fault. And it is something I've done. In some cases, it is something I've done years ago. I other cases, it takes me a couple days to remember "oh yeah, I did X and that is why Y happened". And then that becomes a hint I will pass on to others.

TestDisk can find both "phantom" file system headers and real file system headers. Since you have backups, you know *exactly* what the position of the valid header is. You also know the length (by "mounting" your backup image and "measuring" it). Even if the partition table was blown, you could use dd.exe, Seek and Skip options, blocksize and count options, and surgically copy the defective partition for study. Pop it into HxD hex editor.

Your defective drive, you seem to be telling us the drive works, so there is an opportunity for forensic work.

I use both OSes, so I have a nice mix of tools for study work.

More tangible results from you, means more research I can do to see if the branded device has a "theme". For example, a couple days ago, a poster gave details of the piss-poor SSD Dell had chosen to stick in it, and the SATA SSD in that case is an awful piece of work, a seeming "first generation" SSD design, and Dell did not equip the laptop with a "SNART Warn" feature. Some computers, they stop during boot, and tell you that you need to check SMART NOW, for details about imminent failure. As you note, "SSDs don't click", which means we have less to go on when they exceed wear limits.

Paul

Also available for Windows.

Defender just says malware. MSFT don't like the tool because it reads the product key of a Windows installation, if Windows had a built in tool to do that I wouldn't need it. There are other similar tools of course but Defender doesn't seem to mind those. Interestingly Malwarebytes also calls it malware, I wonder who pulls their strings?

Mmm. IME all SSD failures result in inability to read data at all, not in reading wrong data.

This sounds more like a transient loss of power during a write operation. And if its happened several times I would suspect something other than the component - the SSD - that you have changed.

But if your windows is /was on the drive that failed...

Nothing can read any data. Minitool PW sees a couple of old partitions but can't see any data on them.

Whatever the issue I can't rely on the drive so it's a bin job once I've recovered anything that is removable and useful.

Copying it over to a Samsung ATM.

I always put the OS on C:\ and data/well behaved apps on D:\.

Loss of the OS drive is never a problem, stick a new one and reinstall.