Why does my Hard Drive say only 7mb?

[Debbie25]

I installed a SSD HD into my new Thinkpad SL510.
Install Win7 x64.
No problems
Installed wireless drivers, Hotkey and Ultranav.
Rebooted and the system hung at post
I shut it off and it then said ‘No OS found’

When I slaved the HD to my old system and went into Disk maintenance it only showed the HD as being 7mb.
I could Initialize it but it did not change anything.
I then converted it to 'Basic' and now the 7mb that was showing on the right side is now a blank partition.
There is no drive letter attached to it so I'm not able to run CHKDSK or any other utility.

Verified that the BIOS had the HD set at AHCI the whole time.

Now I know this is not the HD because it happened on 3 different HD’s.

2 of the HD's I was able to install the OS just fine and it would even reboot ok a couple of times and then crash.
The third HD I tried to Ghost it with both 'Ghost' and 'Casper' and it bombed during that process and again showed up the same as the first 2.

I even tried running HDDERASE at the DOS level and it failed.
I can see this happening to 1 drive but 3 of them.

Have you ever heard of this and know what happened?

Thanks,
Debbie

[labtech]

Are all the drives the same as far as brand and capacity? And where did you purchase them from?

[pcimage]

Bought from China and/or Ebay?

[ShaneWard]

Your PC might have corrupted the partition table, use a program like partition Magic, Maxtor Max Blast or something to completely erase all partitions and then create a new one, then format it. Otherwise there would be something wrong with the disk itself.

[Debbie25]

All the SSD drives are all the same brand and model.
I got these SSD from a friend.
Not sure where they got them but I know it was not off ebay or China.

I have tried a program called 'Partition Master' and it will see the HD the same way.
I can try 'Partition Magic' or 'Maxtor Max Blast' and see what they will do.

Again, I could see 1 of the SSD being bad but all 3.
If it is my system doing it.... That's what I'm trying to figure out just what my system would be doing to these HD and is there a way to avoid or correct this.

[Vulcan]

@Debbie25:

Obviously the problem you describe isn't normal - but this isn't a Thinkpad support board, so if this is a problem specific to your PC or type of PC, it might not be known to the people here. There are lots of possible approaches to trying to find out the cause, but it depends on available time (yours and your helper's) as well as being limited by the equipment that you have for doing any testing. Here are a few questions, where the answers might help us.

a) In order to see whether any of the suggestions for Partition Magic etc. are relevant (I doubt they are, but I'm not always right ), please tell us what size is shown for the disk, in your Thinkpad (or "old system" - whichever PC it is easier to install it into) BIOS disk setup screen. Is it shown there as 7MB, or as the full size of the SSD (whatever that is)? If it is shown as 7MB in the BIOS setup screen, then forget any use of Partition Magic etc. - they won't (can't) help in that situation.

b) Please explain the history of these "problem" SSDs - have these 3 specific SSDs been used OK on another PC before you received them? If so, for how long have they been used successfully, and running which OS? What make / model / capacity are they supposed to be? If these SSDs are "brand new" (and therefore untested), how do you know that they aren't fake? Your friend might have unknowingly received counterfeit drives, which have then been given to you...

c) Are you able to put an SSD into a system, which can boot from floppy or CD, and where the SATA controller can be put into IDE/compatibility mode (not fixed in AHCI mode)? If so, then that might allow a little more investigation using a utility called MHDD - but before going into detail on that, let's see whether you've got a system where you could use it. (I've never tried booting via USB and then running MHDD, which is why I'm not suggesting that, but it might also be an option.)

FYI, the type of behaviour you describe is similar to fake USB flash drives, and I expect that I'm thinking along the same lines as labtech and pcimage on this...

[Debbie25]

Thanks for the reply.

Since it is late tonight I will slave the SSD tomorrow and check the BIOS info to see what my options will be for Partition Magic.

I'm not sure what these HD have been through before I got them.
I do know that each one of them did show that they had the full capacity when I started because I had put the OS on them and partitioned the rest the way I wanted them and then they crashed.

I did set the BIOS to Compatible (only options are Compatible or AHCI) when I went to boot to a floppy and run HDDERASE at the DOS level and it booted fine for that.
Of course I got a blue screen when I put my original HD back in and tried to boot up until I remembered that I needed to change it back to AHCI.

The drives say:
Intel
SSDSA2BW600G3
I do see a 'Made in China' on it now.
But I wouldn't think that would cause a problem, but I could be wrong.

[Vulcan]

Thanks for the reply.

And thanks for yours

Since it is late tonight I will slave the SSD tomorrow and check the BIOS info to see what my options will be for Partition Magic.

OK - FYI I'll be travelling long distance on Friday and so not be online until probably Saturday UK time. So if you reply tomorrow and don't hear from me, I'm not ignoring you

I'm not sure what these HD have been through before I got them.

Understood - that lack of testing just removes any confidence we have, that these drives are known to work OK. There are fake (counterfeit) SSDs in the same way as fake USB flash...

I do know that each one of them did show that they had the full capacity when I started because I had put the OS on them and partitioned the rest the way I wanted them and then they crashed.

Understood - that's exactly what we'd expect from fake SSDs (as well as normal ones). Fakes can be programmed to report any capacity which the faker wants them to report.

I did set the BIOS to Compatible (only options are Compatible or AHCI) when I went to boot to a floppy and run HDDERASE at the DOS level and it booted fine for that.

Good - I'm not sure which PC you're referring to there (your Thinkpad or your older system), but that "Compatible" SATA controller setting should allow MHDD to be run later, if it makes sense to go down that path.

That would allow us to confirm that the drive hasn't somehow been told to set an HPA or DCO area (both of which can reduce the amount of space being reported for user data area). However I really don't think this applies in your case, because of when you are seeing this (first reboot after OS installation), and the extremely low amount of space being reported afterwards.

The drives say:
Intel
SSDSA2BW600G3
I do see a 'Made in China' on it now.
But I wouldn't think that would cause a problem, but I could be wrong.

Wow, a 600GB drive - that would be $$$$ if it's legit... A quick check shows prices around ~$1200 on a non-ebay site and ~$700 on ebay (fake?).

I would expect that Intel support could also help you out (much better than I could on this), by getting you to check whatever anti-counterfeit measures they put onto the case (e.g. checking for laser-etching and not printing of part numbers, correct holograms (though even these can be copied now), checking for valid serial numbers etc. etc.). The original dealer who sold these to your friend should be keen to help your friend get this fixed (though might not help you directly, since you didn't buy them yourself) - if they are a legit dealer. Have you asked your friend what dealer support is available to him/her?

I also expect that the fake flash testing software could be used in this situation, although if the drive reports only 7MB to the BIOS, then it's FUBAR now anyway (unless it's got an HPA/DCO set).

Based on the info so far, I expect that the drive will be reporting 7MB in the BIOS setup when you're able to check that (so Partition Magic etc. can't help), probably meaning that the drives were either faulty (unlikely), or counterfeit (more likely IMHO)

[Debbie25]

Even if I was able to recover the HD capacity it scares me to try to use it again in my new system and have it happen again.

I would really like to know what happened.

If it is a fake like you say....
Would it allow me to install an OS, partition it and start installing utilities like it did?

I don't think it has anything to do with the OS or utilities I installed because one of the HD's disk space disappeared when I was trying to clone my original HD and not even in Windows when doing so.

Thanks,
Debbie

[Vulcan]

I would really like to know what happened.

So would we all - but you don't have the specialist equipment needed for definitive diagnosis, and so you can't expect a guaranteed answer to be possible remotely through this forum either. We're trying to assist using the answers which you can supply, but we don't have the drive in front of us - you do! If you really want a detailed explanation of what has happened to the drive, you'll need to pay someone for a physical examination and disassembly and ship the drive to them.

I already suggested the manufacturer support and your friend's supplier, who could be contacted to help identify whether drive is counterfeit, but you haven't replied to those suggestions. You don't seem to have answered the vital question about drive capacity being reported by the BIOS, which I asked before either

If it is a fake like you say....
Would it allow me to install an OS, partition it and start installing utilities like it did?

In some cases - yes.

[Debbie25]

I did install my SSD into my new system and went into the BIOS.
All it shows is the model number "SSDSA2BW600G3" no capacity.

I did boot up onto a Windows 7 DVD and went into 'Custom' and it shows 558.9GB unallocated.
So I try to click next and it say it cannot create a partition.

So then it tried to manually create the partition and got this error:
"Failed to create a new partition on the selected unused space. [Error: 0X8007045d]"

[Vulcan]

I did install my SSD into my new system and went into the BIOS.
All it shows is the model number "SSDSA2BW600G3" no capacity.

Thanks. This lack of displaying a capacity in the BIOS disk setup screen is abnormal on every system I've ever worked on - but I don't have your model of Thinkpad. Just for confirmation, do you expect to see a capacity there (either because you know that the disk capacity is normally shown next to the model number, or because you can see a column heading for capacity etc.)?

I fully expect that what you describe is abnormal behaviour of the drive (depending on your answer to the above question), and is another indication that utilities like Partition Magic will not be helpful for you. I therefore expect that you have reached the end of what you can do without someone having access to the drive physically, and you will have to decide what you want to do, based on the drives being faulty (either due to a manufacturing defect, if they are genuine - or, more likely IMHO, that they are counterfeit).

[Edited to add: Further investigation would be possible using MHDD e.g. to issue EID and see what capacity is returned then - but that ends up issuing the same ATA command as a BIOS does (Identify Device), so the result will be the same. I don't see a way forwards that will lead to anything more that you can do. If the drive is not returning the correct capacity to the BIOS, then it is too sick for you to use, but also you can't do a more detailed diagnosis for that symptom.]

[Debbie25]

Well thanks for sticking with me in trying figure out a solution to this.
I guess I will just stop hoping that I can get a SSD to work with this system.
I'm to scared to try another one and having it do the same thing.

Oh well, it was a good idea to be able to move my laptop without the possibility of the HD crashing.
I always have standby though.

Thanks again,
Debbie

[Vulcan]

I guess I will just stop hoping that I can get a SSD to work with this system.
I'm to scared to try another one and having it do the same thing.

I do understand that worry, but that is not a reason why a genuine SSD would not work in your laptop.

There are some SSD compatibility issues, especially with new models (OCZ is in the news at the moment for compatibility issues), but if you buy from a reputable source, you'll have that support route in case of any problems. Just one example (I'm not associated with them) - if you go to crucial.com they have a compatibility tool between their SSDs and your specific model of laptop e.g. 128GB SSD for $269.99. Others are available too.

You could also research what other users are saying, by googling for "sl510 ssd".

Oh well, it was a good idea to be able to move my laptop without the possibility of the HD crashing.

Well done for considering this issue - I see many laptops being moved while powered-on, then put down on a desk again quite roughly. And people wonder why their hard disks fail when they treat their laptops this way! But as I said, if it was me, I would still consider getting an SSD from a reputable source.

[Vulcan]

@Debbie25:
Although this report doesn't prove that your SSDs are legit, I've just seen this report about firmware problems with Intel 320 SSD (like your 600GB model):

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/11 ... g_reports/

This is exactly the sort of early-life bug which made me mention OCZ previously. FYI, you can ignore most of the comments attached to that thread on The Register so far. They seem to have missed the vital part of the report, that this Intel f/w bug is said to be triggered by power failure, and not excessive writes (which is what most of the comments are talking about).

For reasons a bit too complicated to go into here, SSDs can be very sensitive to power failures. During your installation process, I expect that you needed to reboot quite often. If you were doing those reboots by power-cycling your laptop (instead of ctrl+alt+del), then you might have created the conditions needed to trigger the bug in that linked article.

Since your drive isn't completely dead, and assuming that the drives are legit, you might be able to resurrect it (until Intel produce a f/w fix), by doing a Secure Erase on the drive, using HDDErase v3.3 - but that erases everything from the drive (or at least it should). See the link to the Intel Forum thread in the article which I linked for more details. However, until such a f/w fix is released, I don't see how you can be sure that you won't end up in the same situation again.

Also note that in the thread, users say their "broken" drives now report a size of 8MB; you say yours reports 7MB. That difference might mean that you have a different problem, or that the drives aren't legit.

As I said before, I advise you to get support from the manufacturer. Good luck!

[Debbie25]

OK, I have an update.

The power adapter that was sent with my new SL510 was a 65w, 20v.
I got a 90w, 20v.

I have now installed Win 7 64bit on another SSD and have partitioned and copied all my data over.
It has rebooted several times without any problems.

Now the only thing I'm scared of is running on battery.
Question is, will it get enough power so It doesn't crash again?