XPS 15 (9530) mSATA SSD disappeared after update

Hi all,

My father's XPS 15 decided to cause him some problems today - and following an update to Windows 8.1, the 512GB mSATA SSD disappeared from the BIOS and it no longer boots or recognises the drive i.e. beside mSATA in the BIOS it now states ' None'. He opened it up and mentioned there was a small black dot (that may be heat related) on the 'tracks' on the I/O board joining the mSATA slot to the motherboard. However, we're not sure whether this is the cause.

Has anyone experienced an issue like this before? It was working perfectly before the update & no BIOS settings were changed, it's set to AHCI as always etc.

A little stumped at what to try now, but we suspect a dead SSD. It has no mechanical hard drive; it's the 9530 with the big battery & the 512GB SSD.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

Hi,rpg-XPS,

I just had the same issue. Identical I would say. I've contacted Dell Support. They've issued a service request number and took my laptop as it still has a Warranty. What they did was, they replaced the 512GB Samsung mSATA to a new 512GB LiteON mSATA drive.

I would suggest to contact Dell Support. Or if you have no warranty, you'll have to replace mSATA yourself..

Good luck fixing it!

Cheers

 

Thanks for the reply - but his warranty just ran out! Just our luck. We've bought a new Samsung 512GB mSATA SSD (840 EVO I think) however and reinstalled Windows. So at least it's back up and running.

We put the old SSD into a mSATA USB enclosure, but it doesn't recognise the drive & just gets very hot. So it seems to be just dead.

Thanks for the info.