Can anyone explain this? (SSD/BIOS)

Hey guys,

I have an Alienware M14x R1 with a Crucial M4 SSD and then a 500GB hard drive in a caddy in the optical drive. Of course, the Crucial M4 is the main boot up drive and that is what all my programs are on.

I just updated the firmware on it as I was about to run Parted Magic and do a Secure Erase before doing a clean install of Windows.

After rebooting the computer it wouldn't boot (it was trying to boot off the network card). I went to the BIOS and the Boot order was listed as Network and then CD/DVD drive - there was no SSD even showing up.

I left the computer for about two hours (had to go to the gym) and came back...sure enough it booted up just fine. I have had this happen one other time where it wouldn't boot off the SSD.

What is going on?? Is this a tell tale sign of a SSD going out? It is a 4 year old drive, but that would seem odd to me.

 

I've read about that issue a few times - seems like about 30 minutes with power on is what it needs to recover.

I can't say if it's on its way out - but if this is your only system, I would consider buying something newer in any event.

I also don't recommend SE'ing SSD's - SE is very hard on the nand cells (they're 'cleared' by applying very high voltage). Simply delete all partitions and format the SSD in Windows (or via the Windows Setup wizard) and leave it sit on that screen for a while (around 30 to 60 minutes is all any SSD should need).

While I still have many M4's in use in my older setups, a new gen SSD of ~500GB capacity or greater will really give your SNB based platform a wakeup call (especially when OP'd by 30% or more). Maxing out the RAM capacity will also make it more responsive too.