HELP !! X25-M - Corrupt Master Boot Record ?

[idata]

Hi

I bought an X-25M a few weeks ago for a new build. The rest of the new hardware was not here yet so I installed it in my old machine running XP, formatted it for NTFS with 4K clusters which I read was the best size for speed. That worked fine so I copied one little text file to it as a test. Fine.

Since then its been sitting waiting for its new host machine. Now the new build is done so I connected the X-25M and tried to update the firmware. The new BIOS recognized it fine. I downloaded the firmware, burned an ISO image. Booted from that disc. The utility ran but would not complete the update. It kept saying Updated not completed - either enable Legacy [it was], set to AHCI [I tried that - same thing] or disable disk passwork [I never set one].\

So, I decided to remove it and re-connect it to my old machine so I could try running Intel Tool Box to do the firmware update. I connected it and booted. When XP came up, the SSD was not listed in My Computer but Disk Manager opended. The SSD showed up as Disc 0 - not initialized. I initialized it and rebooted. Then it showed up as Disc 0, unallocated. So I tried to format it [again]. Now it says there is only 8Meg total space !!! This is an 80G SSD!!.

I looked at it with Intel Toolbox - it sees it fine. The Toolbox wanted the disc formatted so I formatted it - all 8M of it as NTFS. The Optimizer said that was not enough space to do anything with.

Where did my 80G go? Why when I put it back in the old machine did it show up as not formatted? I did format it - even copied one litle file to it just to test.

HELP !!

Thanks

Message was edited by: EVGABuzzer

[idata]

It happenned to me too with a Kingston SNM225-S2/160GB which is in fact X25-M G2 rebadged.

Some success with similar problem reported here : http://communities.intel.co.jp/thread/4650 http://communities.intel.co.jp/thread/4650

But nothing work for me and I had to RMA the drive.

My guess is that internal controler drive of some X25-M G2 80G and 160G seem to be defective.

The good news seem to be that if the drive controler don't crash the first week it won't failed later.

So new users be aware of this issue and test your drive a little before real use.

[idata]

Newca,

Thanks for your follow up. I just contacted Amazon to send me a new one based on this one being defective .. 🙂

I just tried HDPARM with no luck using an enclosere and I get a I/O error while in Windows 7 safe mode command prompt.

It looks like I will give hdderase a try.

Thanks again for the response and I will check out that link for sure.

- Tara