Anyone else had a repeat 8mb brick on 320 ssd AFTER firmware update.

[idata]

Had my 320 ssd for a month, all going well till a usb device BSOD my win7, rebooted to find my disk at 8mb. Waited for firmware update last wednesday as lots of forum discussion. Did Secure erase and firmware update to v1.9 and restored partition on friday. Today usb BSOD again (visual studio blow up, im a software developer) and rebooted to find the drive again 8mb. Anyone else had this problem, looks to me like the firmware update did not fix this type of issue.

Greg.

[idata]

In my opinion Intel should have recalled this product.

But they chose to gamble with customer data - really unbelievable!

[idata]

I have a 600GB Intel 320 SSD drive that I flashed the firmware update on back in Sept of 2011.

Today, March 28, 2012, I experienced the dreaded 8MB bug. This is simply unacceptable.

# fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 8 MB, 8388608 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1 cylinders, total 16384 sectorsUnits = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytesSector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytesI/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytesDisk identifier: 0x00000000

# hdparm -i /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

Model=INTEL SSDSA2CW600G3, FwRev=4PC10362, SerialNo=BAD_CTX 00000136

Config={ Fixed } RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16 CurCHS=260/1/63, CurSects=16380, LBA=yes, LBAsects=16384 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled Drive conforms to: unknown: ATA/ATAPI-2,3,4,5,6,7

* signifies the current active mode

[idata]

I sold mine at a big loss and warned the buyer. Clearly there is something going on here. They've been silent about this issue. Probably they've identified the cause and it's a huge liability, hence the silence.

[idata]

First off, I want to thank you all for opening my eyes to an issue that will probably hit my system, sooner or later. The Intel 320 series seems to be more problematic than once believed.

I have a few suggestions. I have an HP Envy 17, that shipped with the 320 series drive. HP recently released a firmware update for the drive, that supposedly addresses the 8 mb issue. See here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-101094-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en... http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-101094-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en...

The specific firmware is newer than the one Intel offers 4PC10365

I have not been able to flash it on my system, for some odd reason...but if you have WinZip or WinRAR, you can unzip the contents of the file and inside you will find an .iso file that can be burned to a CD and you can do the bootable flash in IDE mode if you have a second machine.

Perhaps HP, in conjunction with Intel, have found the solution...and HP customers are the guinea pigs. Not sure if you are comfortable with this idea...but it has to be better than your 320 series bricking over and over.

As far as I am concerned...I have used the Intel migration tool to clone my SSD to an external 500 GB HDD. This way, if and when my 320 bricks, I will remove and put the HDD in so I can continue my work. My Envy is my main work system, and I cannot afford to lose some of the data that it has on it. Also, I backup my system regularly, so I can restore to another drive. Currently, even though the 320 is installed on a laptop, I have sleep, hibernation and any kind of Windows utility that changes the system state to OFF! I am using a laptop as a desktop...so as not to initiate the failure

My first inclination is to find another SSD to replace the 320 as my OS drive. Install my OS on the new SSD and use the 320 as my D drive that will contain non necessary data and programs. I was thinking of the Intel 520 series, until I began reading of the BSOD issues that are starting to pop up. So now my options seem to be either Crucial or Samsung, for the reliability of their drives seems unquestioned.

Intel seems to be either ignoring your pleas, or the HP solution, as I stated earlier, may be a "beta" situation for Intel and HP. If it works, you may see intel release the 365 firmware. Can it hurt you to download and try it? I have to remove the SSD from my Envy and flash on another system. I contacted HP about the failure of the firmware flash to work on my system and all they do is scratch their heads.

Just wanted to share what HP has found and see if it the solution is viable. If you try to use the flasher as is, and don't have an HP system...it will certainly fail. Then I found the .iso inside the file and it should be universal.

Thoughts?

[idata]

I just tried the HP update on a SSDSA2BW160G3L Lenovo drive without any luck. I didn't have much hope since the drive model is slightly different than what the HP support page mentions.

I can confirm that if you burn the HP ISO and boot to it, it will indeed attempt to detect and update the drive. The updater is basically a modified version of the SSD Toolbox. It says it is version 1.9.3 and there is HP notices plastered all over.

Maybe it will work for other non-HP drives, but not for Lenovo it seems. I wonder if each OEM gets a slightly different drive model though, designed to prevent this. For example, my Lenovo drive ends with G3L (L for Lenovo?) and the HP drives end with G3H (H for HP?). If that is the case they may have written the firmware to only update specific HP OEM drives. If that is written into the firmware, then I doubt we'll have much luck getting the HP firmware to work for other non-HP people.

...Unless we could spoof the type of drive we have to appear as an HP drive.