How I brought a 160gb G2 back to life from TRIM firmware update

[idata]

System specs:

Motherboard : Asus DSEB-D16/SAS Bios Revision: 1005

Memory : 16gb Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 (same as Windows 7 R2 x64 Kernel)Disk Configuration: SATA Port 1: 160GB Intel G2 SSDSATA Port 2: Seagate ST370330AS 750GB HDDSATA Port 3: Seagate ST3750640AS 750GB HDDSATA Port 4: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-215D ATA DeviceSATA Port 5: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-215D ATA Device

SSD Content Info:

The drive holds a Server 2008 R2 installation upgraded from Server 2008, cloned from a mechanical hard disk. The drive is in AHCI mode using the Microsoft AHCI driver.

BIOS IDE Modes:

* Enhanced AHCI

* IDE * Compatiblity Mode - In this mode system only sees up to 4 drives, emulating a 4 drive master/slave setup. In this mode has several sub modes to show SATA only, PATA Only, SATA first PATA second, or PATA first and SATA second. These sub modes determine which SATA ports to occupy the 4 ports available in compatibility mode. When in this mode I chose SATA only so my 3 drives from SATA port 1, 2, 3 were accessable, but the optical drives on port 4 and 5 containing the optical drives were not visible/accessible.

Firmware update procedure:

1.) I made a full disk Symantec Ghost 11.5 Corporate Edition backup of the drive before the update. 2.) Flashed in AHCI mode, flash completed fine. 3.) Server 2008 R2 loads fine and detects new hardware (the SSD), Server 2008 R2 installs drivers for the SSD and asks for a reboot.4.) On reboot, the drive corrupts, symptoms include black screen/unbootable device on startup and a complaint from SMART about the drive being bad, specifically end to end errors exceeding limits.

Fix it attempt 1:

1.) Set BIOS to compatiblity mode beause that's the only mode HDDErase will run in on this motherboard.2.) Ran HDDErase 4.1 enhanced secure erase on the SSD.3.) Set BIOS to AHCI mode. 4.) Did a from drive Ghost 11.5 restore from repair boot cd.5.) Server 2008 R2 loads fine and detects new hardware (the SSD), Server 2008 R2 installs drivers for the SSD and asks for a reboot.6.) On reboot, the drive corrupts, symptoms include black screen/unbootable device on startup and a complaint from SMART about the drive being bad, specifically end to end errors exceeding limits.

Fix it attempt 2:

1.) Set BIOS to compatiblity mode.2.) Ran HDDErase 4.1 enhanced secure erase on the SSD.3.) Did a from drive Ghost 11.5 restore from repair boot cd.4.) Set BIOS to IDE mode. 5.) Server 2008 R2 loads fine and detects new hardware (the SSD), Server 2008 R2 installs drivers for the SSD and asks for a reboot.6.) On reboot, the drive corrupts, symptoms include black screen/unbootable device on startup and a complaint from SMART about the drive being bad, specifically end to end errors exceeding limits.

Work around 1:

1.) Set BIOS to compatiblity mode.2.) Ran HDDErase 4.1 enhanced secure erase on the SSD.3.) Did a from drive Ghost 11.5 restore from repair boot cd.4.) Left BIOS to compatibility mode. 5.) Server 2008 R2 loads fine and detects new hardware (the SSD), Server 2008 R2 installs drivers for the SSD and asks for a reboot.

With this work around Server 2008 R2 works fine (and tested for several days working with multiple reboots fine in this mode), but in comaptibility mode I have no access to my optical drives, and since it's not in AHCI mode I also don't have working TRIM support and the SSD still reports SMART errors.

Work around 2:

1.) Set BIOS to compatiblity mode.2.) Ran HDDErase 4.1 enhanced secure erase on the SSD.3.) Set BIOS to AHCI Mode4.) Aligned the SSD parition to 64kb (in hindsight I should probably have used a 128kb offset) using the guide here:http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=325221# post3252215.) Did a from partition to parition restore (as to not destroy the aligned parition created in the previous step) with Ghost 11.5 from repair boot cd.

With this work around Server 2008 R2 works fine, with multiple reboots tested, optical drives visible, TRIM supported, the only thing that persists is the following SMART error reported by the Toolbox:

ID: B8

Description: End to End Error Detection Count Raw: 4Normalized: 96Threshold: 99Recommended Action: Contact your reseller or local Intel representative for assitance.

So it looks like partition alignment has something to do with the TRIM bricking SSDs, hope this info helps Intel/others.

[idata]

Great work JoeGershogrin! It make one wonder who's to blame. Intel's firmware, Microsoft's W7, or both? Incidentally, OCZ users (Vertex etc.) are also occasionally reporting bricked drives in combination with Windows 7. W7 crashes and the Vertex/Agility or whatever is bricked. Same symptoms: no longer visible in the BIOS setup, not even on a different machine. It can happen anytime, any moment. Not necessarily related to flashing new OCZ firmware. In some cases, they also were able to recover their drives using HDD Erase. Their problems look strangely similar to Intel's problems. Could this be more than just coincidence?

Has anyone ever reported a bricked G1/G2 in combination with XP, Linux, Apple? I wonder.

Thanks anyway for your great research. Very helpful.

[idata]

My problems with the 80gb postville ssd, seem only to occur in combination

with Windows 7 64 bits version.

installed W7 evaluation 32bits no problems sofar.

could be a coincidence, however read that some people who had initially

no problems but after numerous restarts of their pc the problem surfaced.

I did the firmware update immedialtely same went A okay but only after

a couple of days the problems began.

if the problem is not only related to the Intel ssd's, you would tend to

think Windows 7 64 bits is causing the problems in conjunction with

the ssd's.

hope both Intel and Microsoft are able to determine what is causing

the current problems.

[idata]

Octron,

I'm using a MAC and updated the firmware and it is running perfectly. I did not change or mess around with aligning the partition. I used it as is out of the box. Using Xbench i'm getting the following:

1) Sequential Uncached Write 103.56-MB/sec (4k blocks)

2) Sequential Uncached Write 94.91-MB/sec (256 blocks)

3) Sequential Uncached Read 43.39-MB/sec (4k)

4) Sequential Uncached Read 216.03-MB/sec (256k)

5) Random Uncached Write 82.74-MB/sec (4k)

6) Random Uncached Write 98.32-MB/sec (256k)

7) Random Uncached Read 12.69 MB/sec (4k)

😎 Random Uncached Read 186.93 MB/sec(256)

When I brought the drive I used SuperDuper to clone from 80SSD to the 160SSD pre firmware update.

[idata]

Here is a partition trick I used to install my ghost image after using HDDErase. After erasing the SSD, I started the Win7 install disk. I started a new install to the SSD. I let it run until the first re-boot. Then I booted to DOS, ran Ghost and did a partition restore (not a full disk restore) to the SSD. Everything running fine in AHCI mode with the Intel drivers.

[idata]

My personal experience.

I was getting, indipendently of the os installed (Windows 7, Vista or Ubuntu), the "not a system disk" error just after some reboots or a shutdown.

Yesterday I gave my G2 another try. First I erased the ssd with hdderase 3.3 in ide compatibility mode. Then I switched to ahci and using diskpart I aligned the ssd with an offset of 128kb (only one ntfs primary partition). I later installed Windows 7 x64 leaving untouched the partition scheme.

Since then I updated the os, installed apps, gamed, rebooted dozens of time, shutted down (even unplugging from the wall outlet) and till now the ssd has worked flawlessy.