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Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

KPiel
New Contributor

Hi,

I have an Intel 320 Series SSD (40Gb) shipped with firmware 4PC10362 (the latest according to Intel's Site / SSD Toolbox) - this had been running in a system for a long time (it's a server - never powered down).

The other day it "disappeared" off the bus in a flurry of SATA timeouts - powering it up now in another machine shows the dreaded "Serial Number: BAD_CTX" and the drive reports as 8Mb.

Obviously this is a 'well known bug' involving older firmware, and powering down - but as the drive was shipped (and stamped as 4PC10362) - and does not get powered down surely this shouldn't happen?

On the server it was running in - we graph SSD life left. The last reading (from the day before it failed) showed 100% life left. We also SMART monitor these drives - and received no SMART failure warning.

We have a *lot* of these drives deployed in production kit - we're now nervously wondering why it failed with the same symptoms as original (i.e. earlier firmware) drives did?

Is there any way to recover it from this failed state (i.e. ignoring/wiping any data on it)?

Thanks

-Kp

8 REPLIES 8

Jose_H_Intel1
Valued Contributor II

I responded to your question here:

Jose_H_Intel1
Valued Contributor II

I am really sorry for the trouble.

KKib
New Contributor

There is a lab in Czech (Europe), called DATA112. They can recover data from Intel 320 SSD with BAD_CTX issue, price is around 600EUR.

MvanR
New Contributor

What did it report as serial nr. ?

Mine (also with new firmware) showed 0000011d, whereas the original firmware bug

lead to 0000013f.