My Series 7 laptop no longer recognizes 8gb iSSD

Hi all... I just noticed last night that my computer was hanging up when rebooting. It'd shut down and stay at a blank screen for a long time and then boot back up, but noticeably slower than before. I thought "oh crap" and went to see if ExpressCache was still enabled, and it was gone from Easy Settings. Double crap. So I went to check my Device Manager and the SSD was no longer there under my disks. It also wasn't showing up under the Windows disk management tool. I tried a system restore but had no luck. I pulled the drivers off of an old forum topic about ExpressCache and tried to install, but it said no SSD drive could be found.

Here's the weird part. If I reboot and open up device manager or the disk management tool, the drive appears for about a minute and then disappears. It will appear normally under the device manager and the disk management tool will show the drive as "healthy" but it's empty (and I know it wasn't empty before). Also, the ExpressCache "service" is running in the Windows services menu.

I am about ready to do a reset to factory settings with Samsung's recovery tool. I really don't want to send this to Samsung since I go back to college in a few days and I don't want to be without it.

I'm at my wit's end. Does anyone have any insight into this??


Thanks!

 

Unfortunately, these iSSDs have been known to die. Is it listed in either Disk Management or as a storage device in the BIOS?

John

 

It only exists in Disk Management for about a minute after startup. It is not listed in the BIOS.

This computer is less than 2 months old. I'm not a happy camper right now.

 

It would be interesting to see if it stays around if you boot Windows into Safe Mode (press F8 just as Windows is starting). Safe Mode uses a minimal driver set and may not load whatever uses the iSSD.

John

 

Great idea! I tried this, and it DOES stay around... In both device manager and disk management (although still empty). I tried safe mode with networking because I was afraid the wifi driver I updated last night would have started all this, but it still works.

This makes me less afraid that it's a hardware issue. Is this an okay assumption?

What steps can I take to remedy this? Is my only choice a factory reset?

 

Yes, that points to it being a software problem. Possibly something in this thread may help.

John

 

I'll try that. Unfortunately the factory reset did not fix the problem. It still disappears after about a minute. We'll see!

 

How about this: Boot your Windows setup DVD; Hit Ctrl-F10 to get a command prompt; use DISKPART to delete the iSSD partition. (Use LIST DISK, LIST PARTITION and SELECT DISK, SELECT PARTITION).

If DISKPART cannot see the iSSD, it's gotta be a hardware failure. If it DOES see it, get rid of whatever is on it.

Just an idea...

 

Won't using DISKPART to delete the iSSD partition make it unusable, until you format it....? I'm trying also to put my series 5 iSSD with only 1 partition, and make the HIBERNATE partition from scratch, but I'm afraid to ruin the iSSD partition and the file system it has (ExtremeFFS, Sandisk proprietary...)

 

I have deleted the iSSD partition on my System 7 many times when experimenting with installs. When you install the ExpressCache software and enable it with Easy Settings, it gets re-created and formatted for ExpressCache use.

At least that's what it does on my System 7 (14 inch) -- but also on a System 5 I had previously. I never did understand why people were having so many problems with ExpressCache. Maybe it's when you install a second SSD things gets complicated. Mine has the standard Hitachi HDD.

 

Hey all, so I thought I'd update the situation.

I wanted to try reformatting the drive or following the thread John had sent me. However, there is little I can do when my computer simply won't recognize the drive. I did a clean install of windows and nothing helped. So I reverted back to factory settings again and now the ssd doesn't even show up upon booting like it did before. I got fed up with spending days on this so I'm sending it into Samsung for a repair.

I have the standard Hitachi disk. I haven't messed with hardware at all since I bought it. I honestly think the thing craps out whenever something tries to access it. If I disabled the expresscache service and set it to manual, the drive would stay visible in device manager. That'd also explain why it showed up in safe mode. I'm just entirely stumped at this point.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and help. I'll let you know what Samsung says. Hopefully it'll help someone who has expresscache headaches in the future

 

I've had the same problem. And all it went to send it back to Samsung. There are many with the same issue. (damn Samsung....)
I know some who sent sent their laptops to samsung and had its motherboard replaced.
Pleas let us know whats your case with that damn iSSD

 

I ended up sending the laptop to Samsung because the motherboard had to be replaced. Finally got it back after 3 weeks.

They left it formatted as NTFS so I had to go through the whole "I want my expresscache back!" thread to fix it and get EC back but it's finally up and running.

Hope this helps!

EDIT: By the way, I had an issue with flash video scaling on youtube and somehow the motherboard replacement fixed that issue. Just a fun fact!