SR 6.1 results for 'dead' Samsung SSD

[Suffolkpunch]

Here's a result that puzzles me. I hope someone can help.

A few days ago, there were 2-3 brief power outages in quick succession at my home address, after which one of my PCs failed to boot.

I filmed the boot screen. Here's a transcription of a screenshot that reveals the problem (the boot drive - a Samsung SSD - is not accessible):

Intel UNDI , PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2008 intel Corporation

This product is covered by one or more of the following patents:
US5,307,459, US5,434,872, US5,732,894, US6,570,884, US6, 115,776 and US6,327,635

Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Series v2.52 (11/28/120

CLIENT MAC ADDR: 08 62 66 2A 79 6B GUID: AA0C0176-263E-41F6-844C-8862662AF96B
PXE-E53: No bootfilename received

PXE-M0F; Exiting PXE ROM.

Googing PXE told me that
"PXE stands for Preboot Execution Environment, a client-server environment that allows devices to boot up over a network. In other words, PXE enables devices to boot from a remote server instead of relying on a local hard drive or CD/DVD."

Ominously this points to the SSD having failed, and therefore PXE being tried (and also failing - there isn't a network server to boot from).

So I booted the PC with its dead SSD from Spinrite v6.1, and - here's the weird thing - SR identified the SSD correctly in red text (Samsung SSD 870 EVO 1TB) despite stating in red 'This drive cannot be accessed'. Moreover - and even weirder - it succeeded in measuring the drive's performance. See attached log file '9 samsung ssd in server.txt'.

The PC UEFI BIOS had been set to power-up after suffering a power cut. My guess is that experiencing one ore two short outages whilst trying to re-boot might have corrupted the SSD boot sector. I have now disabled power-up after a power cut.


Martin

 

[ColbyBouma]

SR identified the SSD correctly in red text (Samsung SSD 870 EVO 1TB) despite stating in red 'This drive cannot be accessed'.

Drive 81 may not be your SSD. It could be something like a USB memory card reader.

Does SpinRite give you an error when you try to select drive 1?

 

[PHolder]

Is it at all possible that your PC's battery for the BIOS settings might be old/weak and what actually happened is your settings got reset or something? (If corrupt, there's usually a checksum, but it's possible it came up showing an error and loaded defaults, but then rebooted again so you didn't see that happen.) Maybe reset the defaults manually, and then configure your boot selection and see what happens.

 

[Fuzzball]

I have seen this before with Windows 11, and sometimes Windows 10. The power goes out and the BIOS forgets that it's an OS which has been installed with UEFI/Secure Boot ON.

Check in the BIOS for the UEFI and Secure Boot settings. If your hard drive had Windows 11, and those got set to off, then it won't boot to the C: drive, and a fallback would be PXI network boot. Just change UEFI and Secure Boot to ON and that may solve the issue.

 

[Suffolkpunch]

Drive 81 may not be your SSD. It could be something like a USB memory card reader.

Does SpinRite give you an error when you try to select drive 1?

Not sure what drive 81 is. The PC doesn't have a memory card reader. I do have a wireless dongle plugged-in to connect mouse/keyboard. Maybe that's drive 81 ?

Spinrite doesn't give an error when I select drive 1 (The Samsung SSD that the PC no longer boots from). But the initial drive enumeration does print the info on it in red, unlike the USB stick SR boots from.

Martin

 

[Suffolkpunch]

Is it at all possible that your PC's battery for the BIOS settings might be old/weak and what actually happened is your settings got reset or something? (If corrupt, there's usually a checksum, but it's possible it came up showing an error and loaded defaults, but then rebooted again so you didn't see that happen.) Maybe reset the defaults manually, and then configure your boot selection and see what happens.

No idea how I to 'reset the defaults manually etc', how to 'configure boot selection'. Can you cite a beginners' guide?

 

[Suffolkpunch]

I have seen this before with Windows 11, and sometimes Windows 10. The power goes out and the BIOS forgets that it's an OS which has been installed with UEFI/Secure Boot ON.

Check in the BIOS for the UEFI and Secure Boot settings. If your hard drive had Windows 11, and those got set to off, then it won't boot to the C: drive, and a fallback would be PXI network boot. Just change UEFI and Secure Boot to ON and that may solve the issue.

Checked the UEFI Bios and secure boot is enabled.

Possibly relevant further info.
1. I have (temporarily) got the Linux Mint PC running again using the WD hard drive that the SSD replaced. The PC booted (LM uses UEFI secure boot, I think) without a problem. Does that imply that the UEFI boot mechanism is ok?

2. I tried restoring an Image for Linux backup of the WD drive to the Samsung SSD. But Image for Linux couldn't select the SSD to restore to. Image for Linux boots using UEFI. So does that say that trying to access the SSD using UEFI fails, *but* trying to access it using the non-UEFI Spinrite usb stick succeeds? If so, what does that mean?

Martin

 

[AlanD]

If you can boot the PC using the WD HDD, can you then run any diagnostics on the SSD from within Linux? Testdisk is available on Linux and may be able to check things like boot sector or corrupt File Allocation tables.

Free from https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

 

[PHolder]

No idea how I to 'reset the defaults manually etc', how to 'configure boot selection'. Can you cite a beginners' guide?

Unfortunately almost every BIOS/UEFI is different, but usually they have a page to load "system optimized" defaults. Correspondingly, there is usually a page for "boot order" or similar. Somehow you need to tell the firmware (the BIOS/UEFI) that handles the POST (power-on self-test) which device is targeted as the boot device.

 

[Alice]

I don't get all the noise people are introducing. Colby is the only one who gets it.
Can we see SMART for the SSD? If SR AND Linux can't select the SSD as destination, the SSD is perhaps read-only. SSD firmware tends to switch to that state if a problem is detected.

 

[Suffolkpunch]

I have got my miniPC running again:
1. Reused the WD hard drive that the SSD replaced. Upgrading Linux Mint on it to the version on the dead SSD, and restoring my data from back-ups. Imaged the whole WD drive using ImageforLinux.
2. Fitting a replacement Samsung 870 EVO SSD and restored the WD whole drive image to it.
3. The PC UEFI BIOS had been set to power-up after suffering a power cut. My guess is that experiencing one ore two short outages whilst trying to re-boot might have corrupted the SSD boot sector. I have now disabled power-up after a power cut.

I don't have the time to fiddle any more with the old SSD - time is money!

Thanks to you all for helping.

Martin