IEMC

So, here we go:
The past few days my computer was acting weird. Drivers failing to work, sudden staggering of performance, etc.

Today I turn on my computer, used it for about 15 minutes, then went to lunch.
Got back about 40 minutes later: Apparently my computer restarted, as it was trying to detect a boot CD during startup. I didn't instruct it to do this, and there was no reason it should have been.

Okay that's weird, I restart.
Happened again on startup, so I restarted and got to Windows (during a few more restarts later on, it continues to try and use a boot disk. Not sure why.)

Suspecting some problems, I go in and start a backup to make sure I'm safer than sorry. Backup goes to about 50%, then fails. Stop backing up, telling me there's no enough room when there clearly is.

I run a diskcheck with sector checking on. In the end, I received 10 notifications of fixed sectors, and a handful of reindexed files.
Obviously not good.

Before diskcheck, it was randomly freezing when in use and it was generally unreliable to work.

I unplugged my two other HDDs, and it was still having issues. So it's obviously not them.

I'm on it now, and obviously it's working, I just don't know for how much longer.

Is this the tell-tale signs of my SSD failing? It's a 7 month old OCZ Vertex, and was working fine up until the last few days.

Any other ideas I should try? Thanks.

EDIT: I actually just got done with the checkdisk, so I'm going to try and back up again.

Also note that I tried running Windows Resource Protection, and that failed around 55%, as well. I'll try to run that again, too.

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IEMC

Well, "SFC /scannow" yielded some corrupted files, some of which could not be repaired.

So obviously there's some corrupting going on.

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Judas

yeah sounds like distinct corruption of some sort going on... and by the sounds of it.... your clean in the virus/malware part of it?

i guess a tell tale way of making sure is to wipe the drive clean using the ocz tools.... and reinstall to see if the problems persist.

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IEMC

I have an older backup I can use to reinstall with, I suppose. God damn, I really didn't want to do that, but I think you're right.

I should be clean of Malware. I'll do a scan to be sure.

Also, just tried to backup again, and once again it failed. So no go on backing up.

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blibbax

If you have an older backup, but cannot create a complete new one, can you not just copy over anything new on to a USB drive or similar so that you won't loose any data? Or is it an OLD backup?

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IEMC

It's about a month old, and I don't think I've made any real changes on my C: drive for awhile now. So honestly I could probably just use my backup and it should work fine, given the hard drive cooperates.

I'll have to do a restore from that backup when I get a chance.

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CJLMTLCA

Does OCZ have some kind of SSD utility comparable to Intel's SSD Toolbox which can diagnose the drives?

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IEMC

I actually looked it up and couldn't find anything, which is unfortunate.

So, what's a good way to put an image of my drive onto this SSD? Obviously I can't be in Windows, so I don't know how to go about doing this.

I have a Gigabyte motherboard, in case for some reason there's a way to do it with a Gigabyte mobo, or something.

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IEMC

So, I'm pissed. Just went to look for my backups on my portable hard drive and for whatever reason there's empty windows image folders but no images.

Where the hell did my images go? Probably something I failed to see, or something. Just pisses me off.

This will be fun, though. Now I get to completely reinstall Windows.

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CJLMTLCA

What did you use to create the backups?

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IEMC

I used Windows' Backup and Restore to create the backup files, but then used Cobian Backup 10 to move them to my portable. Not sure what didn't work along those lines.

I'm submitting an RMA request with OCZ. Clearly it's the drive. Files don't corrupt themselves.

I hope they can cross ship. School just started back up and I need this computer up ASAP.

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CJLMTLCA

That's what i use to. The files go to an external HD. You checked all the folders on the portable, maybe they where copied to another folder by mistake. You can have B&R scan another drive for the backup files, or at this point it doesn't really matter, no personal files there? just you Windows install? Then wait for the replacement drive and do a fresh install.

Also, if you haven't done so already, create the Windows Recovery Disk, so when things like this happen you can boot from the disk and restore the image.

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IEMC

Yeah everything important is backed up on my external plus, on an internal terabyte drive.

The problem is all of my applications will need be be reinistalled. Even though they're mostly on another HDD, Windows won't know they even exist.
Is there a way I can back that up? Isn't all that info stored in the registry?

But I'm confused. I have a partition for backup on my terabyte drive. It says there's 23.4 Gb worth of data on it, but when I look on it, there's only about 3 kilobytes inside. This is with hidden folders visible. That doesn't make sense to me.

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Judas

i refuse to every use backup programs.. even the one supplied by windows 7...

NONE of them ever work even 50% of the time usually.

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CJLMTLCA

Man Judas, no anti-virus, no backup software, you like living on the edge...
I have been a long time Ghost user and recently with W7, been using Backup&Restore. I don't know how reliable any of them are because i never had to restore an image but have restored single files from both and they worked, so i'm assuming my data is backed up well. In fact, if i'm not mistaken B&R just ZIP archives your files and copies them to a folder.

IEMC, so you have a partition that seams to occupy space. What happens if you point B&R to that partition? Will it see the backup? Because if i understand you correctly you did the backup with Windows and then used another app to copy the files somewhere else, so Windows no longer finds the files in the original location... ?

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IEMC

I indeed tried that. It doesn't detect a backup file there. I don't know, it's really weird.

I've accepted that I'm going to have to start over from fresh. Not that big of a deal, just a chance for me to make everything neater on my drive and get rid of old games.

Anywho, this weekend I'm going to try upgrading the firm ware. I doubt it will have any effect.
I'm still trying to RMA the thing, but have gotten no response from OCZ as of yet.

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mkk

Definitely do that if you are giving the drive another chance while waiting for an RMA reply. Probably worth checking the OCZ forum to see if there is some recommendation of software or even official tool for zeroing a drive. Worth a try when an SSD acts up so badly.

Judas

i have a USB flash drive and an External hardrive for files that are larger then the usb can hold..

I manually copy the files i wish... and it only takes a few minutes to do.

If windows goes bad, i prefer a fresh install of windows 7 over a ghosted/imaged one... My experience with ghosts/imaged backups or installs have been purely terrible... i've had several users come in figuring their computer was toast cause their repeated attempts to get their "working ghost" to work and falling back on a known working ghosts weren't working. A fresh install results in them being amazed .... so who knows.

It only takes even on a lower end modern machine.. about 10 minutes to install windows 7 home premium. and an addtional 5-10 minutes to install the necessary drivers. After which install the needed software is a sinch and doesn't take long either.

My own builds i've timed it.. from the time i get it assembled and hit hte power button with the latest bios update all fired up and setup..... to the time i'm done and the customer can pick them up.. is about an hour.

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IEMC

Went to the OCZ forums to see if I could get some help over there. Maybe any possible ideas from the OCZ guys themselves.

I'll let you know if anything comes of it, but somehow I doubt there's any hope in this drive.

Thanks everyone, so far!

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Judas

let us know.. i'm interested... i've been riding the fence with an eager twitch to try an SSD for my own personal use.... and i just can't do it just yet..... maturity and failure rates are something i'm interested in knowing... it's a new technology yet.

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IEMC

The RMA guy suggested I look at this guide for power settings on Windows 7, saying it could have corrupted my files.

Every setting they told me I need to change, I already changed to what they had. So there's no way that was the issue. I told him that, and he just said to RMA it. So that's what I'll do.

I would reformat / install, but I need this up asap as school just started back up. I need my computer. I'd rather just get a new drive.

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IEMC

Finally crapped out almost completely just now.

Booted up to an "insert bootable media" warning. Restarted, got to Windows start up which then flashed the quickest blue screen I've ever seen, then restarted.

Restarted into the bios not detecting the drive at all.

Turned off computer, let it sit 20 mins, and tried again. This time I managed to boot into safe mode with networking, where I am now.

New drive gets here via cross-ship on Tuesday. This weekend is going to suck. Oh well.

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Judas

well you got your backups and such done though right?

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IEMC

Yeah.

I just did a fresh install of Windows 7. Everything is basically back to how I had it.

Just fully updated Windows, so I'm going to do a thorough backup with recovery disk this time around.

So in the end, nothing really happened other than a slight inconvenience. Luckily OCZ RMA service is pretty good about replacing drives.
I just need to send them the old one back now.

Thanks for the input, guys!

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Judas

good to hear

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CJLMTLCA

Great news and great service from OCZ.

Finally was there any firmware updates for that drive, might as well have it up to date, although i would assume if they send you one directly, it would already be.

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IEMC

Totally forgot to check. Good point though.

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