topic Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware? in Solid State Drives (NAND)

Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

KPiel — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 13:24:23 GMT

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

Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

Jose_H_Intel1 — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 14:26:02 GMT

The 8MB drive capacity report is a generic failure mode that the 320 Series SSD was intentionally designed to go into when it determines that it can no longer operate in a reliable manner. The drive can go into this mode for different reasons (not just the firmware causes corrected with the Px10362 firmware release).

Since you have the most recent firmware, the most likely cause is failure of one of the NAND components. Please contact your nearest http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contactsupport Intel Customer Support contact center to set up a warranty return.

Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

KPiel — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 14:37:53 GMT

Hi,

Thanks for clearing that up - there's so much stuff around related to 'CTX_BAD' - but all of it I found was reporting the original firmware issues - i.e. you couldn't work out that this can also happen for other / genuine 'drive has failed reasons'.

Rather annoying as it had 100% life left according to SMART (which never gave any pre-warning of the failure either) - hopefully that'll be a lesson for others not to trust SMART more than backups, if nothing else! (This drive was part of a RAID array in addition to being backed up daily - so we're not lost data).

-Kp

Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

RT4 — Mon, 12 May 2014 10:50:45 GMT

Any genuine attempt at a solution to get data from the 8MB BAD_CTX 13F bug from Intel?

Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

Jose_H_Intel1 — Thu, 15 May 2014 23:37:08 GMT

I responded to your question here:

Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

DBoot — Mon, 26 May 2014 11:41:46 GMT

really joe, IS THAT TRUE?

i've just lost my drive to the BUG, had the latest firmware and toolbox reported no issues

intel sold me a SHONKY product (in fact i bought two), a product that is non-merchantable, if it was a car, then intel would be forced to do a product recall

i will be contacting warranty to get a full refund on both

Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

Jose_H_Intel1 — Thu, 29 May 2014 21:20:11 GMT

I am really sorry for the trouble.

Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

KKib — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:57:29 GMT

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.

Re: Intel 320 Series SSD BAD_CTX with current firmware?

MvanR — Sun, 31 Jul 2016 11:31:02 GMT

What did it report as serial nr. ?

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

lead to 0000013f.