How I brought a 160gb G2 back to life from TRIM firmware update

[idata]

System specs:

Motherboard : Asus DSEB-D16/SAS Bios Revision: 1005

Memory : 16gb Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 (same as Windows 7 R2 x64 Kernel)Disk Configuration: SATA Port 1: 160GB Intel G2 SSDSATA Port 2: Seagate ST370330AS 750GB HDDSATA Port 3: Seagate ST3750640AS 750GB HDDSATA Port 4: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-215D ATA DeviceSATA Port 5: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-215D ATA Device

SSD Content Info:

The drive holds a Server 2008 R2 installation upgraded from Server 2008, cloned from a mechanical hard disk. The drive is in AHCI mode using the Microsoft AHCI driver.

BIOS IDE Modes:

* Enhanced AHCI

* IDE * Compatiblity Mode - In this mode system only sees up to 4 drives, emulating a 4 drive master/slave setup. In this mode has several sub modes to show SATA only, PATA Only, SATA first PATA second, or PATA first and SATA second. These sub modes determine which SATA ports to occupy the 4 ports available in compatibility mode. When in this mode I chose SATA only so my 3 drives from SATA port 1, 2, 3 were accessable, but the optical drives on port 4 and 5 containing the optical drives were not visible/accessible.

Firmware update procedure:

1.) I made a full disk Symantec Ghost 11.5 Corporate Edition backup of the drive before the update. 2.) Flashed in AHCI mode, flash completed fine. 3.) Server 2008 R2 loads fine and detects new hardware (the SSD), Server 2008 R2 installs drivers for the SSD and asks for a reboot.4.) On reboot, the drive corrupts, symptoms include black screen/unbootable device on startup and a complaint from SMART about the drive being bad, specifically end to end errors exceeding limits.

Fix it attempt 1:

1.) Set BIOS to compatiblity mode beause that's the only mode HDDErase will run in on this motherboard.2.) Ran HDDErase 4.1 enhanced secure erase on the SSD.3.) Set BIOS to AHCI mode. 4.) Did a from drive Ghost 11.5 restore from repair boot cd.5.) Server 2008 R2 loads fine and detects new hardware (the SSD), Server 2008 R2 installs drivers for the SSD and asks for a reboot.6.) On reboot, the drive corrupts, symptoms include black screen/unbootable device on startup and a complaint from SMART about the drive being bad, specifically end to end errors exceeding limits.

Fix it attempt 2:

1.) Set BIOS to compatiblity mode.2.) Ran HDDErase 4.1 enhanced secure erase on the SSD.3.) Did a from drive Ghost 11.5 restore from repair boot cd.4.) Set BIOS to IDE mode. 5.) Server 2008 R2 loads fine and detects new hardware (the SSD), Server 2008 R2 installs drivers for the SSD and asks for a reboot.6.) On reboot, the drive corrupts, symptoms include black screen/unbootable device on startup and a complaint from SMART about the drive being bad, specifically end to end errors exceeding limits.

Work around 1:

1.) Set BIOS to compatiblity mode.2.) Ran HDDErase 4.1 enhanced secure erase on the SSD.3.) Did a from drive Ghost 11.5 restore from repair boot cd.4.) Left BIOS to compatibility mode. 5.) Server 2008 R2 loads fine and detects new hardware (the SSD), Server 2008 R2 installs drivers for the SSD and asks for a reboot.

With this work around Server 2008 R2 works fine (and tested for several days working with multiple reboots fine in this mode), but in comaptibility mode I have no access to my optical drives, and since it's not in AHCI mode I also don't have working TRIM support and the SSD still reports SMART errors.

Work around 2:

1.) Set BIOS to compatiblity mode.2.) Ran HDDErase 4.1 enhanced secure erase on the SSD.3.) Set BIOS to AHCI Mode4.) Aligned the SSD parition to 64kb (in hindsight I should probably have used a 128kb offset) using the guide here:http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=325221# post3252215.) Did a from partition to parition restore (as to not destroy the aligned parition created in the previous step) with Ghost 11.5 from repair boot cd.

With this work around Server 2008 R2 works fine, with multiple reboots tested, optical drives visible, TRIM supported, the only thing that persists is the following SMART error reported by the Toolbox:

ID: B8

Description: End to End Error Detection Count Raw: 4Normalized: 96Threshold: 99Recommended Action: Contact your reseller or local Intel representative for assitance.

So it looks like partition alignment has something to do with the TRIM bricking SSDs, hope this info helps Intel/others.

[idata]

The theory looks good, except that I upgraded the firmware on my SSD with an already installed Win7. So, the partition alignment did not change. SSD trashed. Then, after HDDErase, I ghosted an image back to the SSD, without creating the partitions first, and it ran fine. ?? I, of course, still have the same SMART errors as you do.

I was unaware of HDDErase 4.1. Obviously, it runs on SSD's. Where did you find it?

[idata]

Was Win7 installed on a blank drive or on a drive that previously had WinXP or Vista? If the drive was originally partitioned with XP or Vista you woudn't have correct alignment. This bad alignment may have just not broken you until enabling TRIM.

[idata]

FYI, the Windows 7 installer by default creates a 100MB partition for WinRE (system recovery) before the main OS partition, which gives the drive an overkill 100MB alignment. I think this is probably the same for 2008. Also, after alignment to 4KB to match cluster size, the next potentially performance enhancing thing would be 1MB for block size alignment (especially when windows pages out in 1MB chunks).

By using Ghost, you are losing the WinRE partition and this 1MB alignment, but at least in your working case you have maintained the more critical 4KB alignment.

[idata]

Sorry I meant HDDErase 4.0:

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu requires you at least have firmware 8820 on G1 drives:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=691&type=expert&pid=9

I'm aware of the 100mb partition created by Server 2008 R2 / Windows 7 installation. I never had one on this drive since it was an upgrade from Server 2008 (based on Vista Kernel).

I mention in the original post that this installation is a Ghost restore from a mechnical drive (Raptor 74gb). I'm guessing the misalignment occured when I did a disk restore from the mechnical drive Ghost image.