Disk Boot Failure after blue screen

[mynameiseliot]

Hi,

Over summer I built myself a new PC with the following spec:

i7 2600K 3.4GHz
16GB DDR3G-Skill RAM
HIS HD6950 2GB GPU
OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 SSD
Gigabyte Z68A MOBO

I also have 2 old hard drives acting as general storage and for programs that I don't want on the SSD.

However, probably within a few days of having set everything up (which all started fine), I started to have a problem.

Sporadically, the computer will crash, reboot and then display a disk boot failure error. Initially I panicked and tried to reboot from the Windows CD etc. For some reason I had a fiddle inside, particularly with the SATA connection to the SSD. When I rebooted, it worked fine.

This has been going on now for months.

I've rung ebuyer and said to them, but they have no idea what the problem is. I'm hesitant to send it back to be replaced under warranty due to the disruption it will inevitably cause (I'm a secondary school teacher and so rely on having my computer).

I hadn't actually had a problem for a few weeks until about a week ago. Now it blue screens and then dies.

I did get a message saying, upon reboot one time that the CPU had been overclocked (which it has, but only to 3.9GHz). Another reboot saw this message go away...

Does anyone have any ideas as to what this could be?

It's perhaps also worth mentioning that sometimes the HDDs seem to go to 'sleep' i.e. if I'm using iTunes, and I click to play a song, there will be a lag. This can happen after having not used the computer for a while, but it can also happen in the middle of using it.

I've run various disc check programs, all of which have said that all the drives are healthy.

 

[TVeblen]

For the Disk Boot Failure message you should check out the diagnostics and tests mentioned here: SSD Tweaking and Diagnostics Tools

For the CPU overclock message, that means your overclock is not stable. Tone it down, or reset BIOS defaults. As long as you are getting bluescreens you should not be overclocking at all. Reset the standard settings and determine if the problem is still there. If it is then deal with the hard drive and resolve it. After the system is running correctly, then play with overclocking.

 

[Corazon]

Does your OCZ SSD run the latest firmware? Seems these drives are kind of notorious for being crashy with outdated firmware.

 

[mynameiseliot]

I've just checked and I don't have the latest firmware. However, it recommends not updating if the SSD is the boot disk which mine is. Can anyone shed any light on this?

 

[Hipster Doofus]

When it happens again do as mentioned above & check the boot order in the bios. Sounds like it changed itself. Happens to me when I get similar error messages.

As for the SSD. At the moment it all seems to hang on chance. If I had know the issues these things have I would have waited getting one.

 

[mpooley]

This is happening to me too
with my corsair Force 3 SDD
I have to change boot order in Bios every time it happens or it wont boot.

 

[TVeblen]

A couple of things I have read regarding SSDs and the changing boot order issue:

First things to check is:

• 3v motherboard battery - if weak it will lose settings.
• SATA data cable - try a new one, or a different one.
• Power connector - try a different one

The other thing I see is that people are running the boot drive SSD on the secondary controller on the motherboard to take advantage of the SATA3 speeds (a Marvel controller, for instance). This seems to cause the common problem. People report fixing the problem by putting the SSD on the Intel controller (the main 6 SATA ports). While these ports run at SATA2 speeds there does not seem to be a noticeable change in speed or performance.

SSDs and SATA3 are still relatively new tech. It often occurs to me that the industry is still working out the bugs and the consumers are the beta testers.

 

[Tae Song]

OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 SSD ... I'm looking at reviews on Newegg.com and although it rates 4 out of 5 stars overall, 23% gave it only 1 star, meaning there is a very high failure or high dissatisfaction rate on this drive.

 

[Corazon]

The OCZ forums are a great resource to deal with issues like this: Vertex3, Agility3, Solid3 and Synapse caching drive support and discussion forum

 

[badger906]

There was a know issue with the first few batches of the ocz drives.

The driver was to fault. Apparently the SSD was reading data faster than the driver could process causing things to hang.

The recent driver update has eliminated that issue by slowing down the drive a very small amount. (Talking less then 50 mega bits per second).

The OCZ website has a list of effected drives which can be identified by their serial number.

I run my corsair force 3 off my non intel 6gbps SATA socket and its been flawless. Not sure on the cable quality, it came with my ASUS mobo.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

 

[mynameiseliot]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm thinking that a firmware update could be the answer (or at least I hope it will). However, OCZ say that the firmware can't be updated if the drive is the boot drive.

If this is the case, how can I update the firmware?

As I think I said, if I give the cable a wiggle, I can get back into Windows very painlessly. Obviously this is a hassle though, and the crashes seem to be random...

 

[TVeblen]

As I think I said, if I give the cable a wiggle, I can get back into Windows very painlessly. Obviously this is a hassle though, and the crashes seem to be random...

If you did mention this I missed it. And it raises the possibility that you just have a bad SATA cable!

That is now what you should check first. Get yourself a good quality SATA cable and switch it for the one on the drive. Be sure the connectors are plugged in well.

 

[mynameiseliot]

I've already swapped the cables - I've tried both with standard supplies cables. Will a 'good quality' cable be any different to those that I've tried?

 

[TVeblen]

Probably not. The odds that 2 cables are bad is high, that 3 are bad is higher.

It could be the connector on the drive itself. But if your observation is correct and the drive can be recognized if you wiggle the connector (improving contact) then I believe you have your culprit. I can't think of any defect in the drive, the motherboard, or the OS that would be affected by wiggling the cable.

The only other thing that might be related is that the power connector is loose, or not making good contact, and it is moving also when you wiggle the data connector.

 

[mynameiseliot]

Is there anyway that this can be rectified BESIDES having it replaced? Obviously that would (in theory) fix the problem, but at the minute I don't have the time to be dealing with the hassle of a new drive...

 

[TVeblen]

Well, you can play with it. With warning.

If you look at a SATA cable, inside the connector you will see 7 contacts. You could try and pry up on these contacts with a very small flat blade screwdriver so as to maximize the contact to the matching contacts inside the connector on the hard drive. That may create enough of an improvement to fix the problem.

You could also wrap some electrical tape around the outside of the connector to try and "snug-up" the mating of the connector and the drive. That may stop it from wiggling.

If the issue is with the connector on the hard drive you've got a big decision. If you damage the SATA cable it is no big deal - just get a new one. But if you damage the connector on the drive you are screwed. You will not be able to retrieve your data and if still under warranty then... you know.

It all depends on what you are capable of and how much risk you are willing to take.