Intel 600GB SSD just crashed - 8 MB/10 GB capacity! OS not found

[idata]

My rather brand new (1 month old) Intel 600 GB SSD just hang up while surfing, suddenly computer frozen, noticed the disk light on for a long time, then corrupted screen for 20 secs at which point i powered computer forcefully off instead of waiting for a blue screen (this is a Windows 7 64bit core duo laptop).

Upon restarting got message: Operating system not found

Going to BIOS: disk is reported as Intel SSDSA2CW600G3-(S1), LBA Format, Total sectors: 16384, Max capacity: 10 GB

Is there any way to fix this, especially returning all my data? I do have backups but there's some recent stuff that's not included.

I had read all previous discussions about this "rare" bug but thought that statistically it would be a very remote possibility...well i became a statistic There have never been any power outages, i'm almost always plugged in with a fully charged battery. In general i power off my laptop very seldom (when necessary due to Windows getting slow or updates), most often it's on 24/7.

EDIT: BIOS reported as above, but now that it's plugged in my e-sata port, Windows displays the dreaded 8 MB capacity

Is there any way i could try to salvage the data? Should i try formatting this disk first, OR applying the firmware update first?

[idata · Accepted solution]

Did you recently (August-2011) upgrade the firmware to the latest 0362 level?

If you are a victim of the so called "8MBbug", see:

/message/135752# 135752 http://communities.intel.com/message/135752# 135752 than there is no way to rescue your data from your 600GB ssd.In that case you first need to do a Secure Erase (freeware HDDErase) to restore your drive to 'factory state'.

Only after that you can flash your ssd with the latest firmware v1.9.2,

see: http://www.intel.com/go/ssdfirmware www.intel.com/go/ssdfirmware!

[idata]

No i have not updated the firmware ever, drive was received in late July, so most probably it didn't had a firmware dated August yet.

Seems i have to follow your advice and use HDDErase (any other options than this? where to download?) and then flash the new firmware (and pray for the best).

LUCKILY i have reasonably recent full backup, what i did lose is not irreplaceable and my computer's up and running with a backup disk already.

BUT, all in all this is HORRIBLE. That a drive can lose all its contents SNAP just like that!!! No warning, nothing!!! I don't think i can ever really trust that disk again and it was expensive too

[idata]

Drive has been restored to working condition. After crash, the serial number was set to BAD_CTX 0000012D.

I performed secure erase on the drive with MHDD.EXE, as HDDERASE.EXE would hang up before reaching main menu, even after setting SATA mode to ATAin BIOS, from the default AHCI.

Because my Award BIOS locks drive passwords while computer is in use, i first booted on USB key with DOS, then plugged in the Intel SSD, then started MHDD, set a password on the drive with PWD command, then performed secure erase with FASTERASE.

After this, capacity of the drive was immediately shown as 5xxxxx MB, as opposed to 8 MB before. After this i performed firmware upgrade for the SSD drive by booting with the firmware upgrade CD-ROM, after which drive was upgraded and in fully working condition.

I wanted to document what i went through above, so that anyone else having these problems will find at least some pointers what to do.

Please be smarter than me, and burn the firmware upgrade cd-rom before starting

And yes, i do feel quite uneasy using this drive now. What if this happens again? It's going to be a significant additional trouble to start taking live disk backups every single night now.