SSD loses partitions on a regular basis

Hi guys,

I have a Intel 520 Series 120gb SSD, that i've been using for a few months.

In the last few months, on a regular basis(every 20-30 days), my system boots up normally without errors, and suddenly applications start displaying errors that they cannot access the the root drive.

After a reboot the SSD loses all the partition info along with the data on it, and it wont boot, while the BIOS flashes the "disk boot failure - insert system disk" error.

After inserting the system disk, and doing a clean install, it works perfectly, and passes all Diagnostic Checks for the next 20-30 days until it does that AGAIN!

After that, the SMART LBA written data count resets to about 1.5TB.

The worst part is that i cant take it to a RMA because it wont display any errors when they do their diagnostics, otherwise i would replace it for the same model immediately.

Any suggestions?

Just off the top of my head, I'd be looking for bad connections or power state failures. Check your system event log and maybe run a voltage monitor like HWiNFO64.

carwiz said:

Just off the top of my head, I'd be looking for bad connections or power state failures. Check your system event log and maybe run a voltage monitor like HWiNFO64.

Thanks for the reply,

The system event log is clean since i had to reinstall my system, although i had a failure to return from standby a few days ago.
I need to say that that did not happen to me before or ever since.

My power supply is about 1yo, since my previous power supply died.

It has a stable voltage variation of approx. 1%.

Does the drive show up in BIOS when it does it's "disappearing trick" ?

I assume its on the latest firmware?


The drive does sound like it's definitely faulty.

In this case it may be best to get onto the intel SSD forums https://communities.intel.com/community/tech/solidstate

That may be the best place to get a clearer idea why it's occuring and the best way to RMA it despite lack of error data.

smarteyeball said:

Does the drive show up in BIOS when it does it's "disappearing trick" ?

I assume its on the latest firmware?


The drive does sound like it's definitely faulty.

In this case it may be best to get onto the intel SSD forums https://communities.intel.com/community/tech/solidstate

That may be the best place to get a clearer idea why it's occuring and the best way to RMA it despite lack of error data.

Thanks for the reply,

The drive does show up normally after the dissapearence, however it does not have a partition, and appears as "Unformatted data" in Windows Setup.

The drive was shipped with the latest i400 firmware, and Intel hasnt released an update to it since.

Ill try browsing the forum in search of some clues of what is actually happening to my drive.

The problem of RMA'ing my SSD is that (by the guarantee i got when buying) is that i will be given a replacement drive if and only if the merchandise is prooven faulty by the seller. Otherwise they will just re-format it, as i did, and return it as 'fixed'.

System events occur day in and day out. Even from the start of a install. Look for unusual driver restarts or power faults. Also, Intel drives have a power fault count. That might indicate a problem if it's unusually high. I would still go through a SATA cable disconnect/reconnect. Might even try a different cable on the SSD.

carwiz said:

System events occur day in and day out. Even from the start of a install. Look for unusual driver restarts or power faults. Also, Intel drives have a power fault count. That might indicate a problem if it's unusually high. I would still go through a SATA cable disconnect/reconnect. Might even try a different cable on the SSD.

Yes, system events do occur on a daily basis. I review the system log on a weekly basis and i know the usual entries it writes to the log. However they are usual warnings and do not pose a problem.

I never saw a power fault or a driver issue on my previous system while reviewing the log. So the problem is most likely a hardware issue and not a software one.

The SMART's unexpected power loss value is equal to the power cycle count and the unsafe shutdown count. Its currently 500.

ratePV said:

The drive does show up normally after the dissapearence, however it does not have a partition, and appears as "Unformatted data" in Windows Setup.

There was another SSD (Corsair M4 iirc) that used to exhibit similarish behavior after it had reached X amount of power on hours that started to do similiar to what your drive is doing, although that was firmware fixed.


it's the regular timing that has to be the clue. It's almost like it's self scheduling a secure erase

The drive was shipped with the latest i400 firmware, and Intel hasnt released an update to it since.

Yeah, was a long shot. All my 520's came shipped with the latest.

Ill try browsing the forum in search of some clues of what is actually happening to my drive.

Fingers crossed it will grab somebodies attention. I'm not sure if intel has any reps on the forum though. If they do you might have a better chance of explaining the issue before sending it in for an RMA.

It might be worth adding a note to the RMA form explaining the difficult to reproduce issue. They may even not bother testing it and just give you a new 530 replacement or a refurbished 520.

Then again their diagnostic equipment may be able to reproduce it. Either way you cant keep using the drive. Intels are normally rock solid but unfortunately you got a bad one