Boots in Safe Mode but not Normal Mode

[PaceAdvantage]

My solid state drive failed a couple of weeks ago. NO WARNING whatsoever.

One day just a BSOD and that was it...the only other hard drive I had fail on me was the old school mechanical variety, and that gave me enough warning where I was able to back it up completely without issue.

[DJofSD]

So Mike, when the SSD went belly up, how did you recover?

Isn't there an existing drive on the system which contains the source of what is on the SSD, i.e. the OS?

[dlgreg]

Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage

My solid state drive failed a couple of weeks ago. NO WARNING whatsoever.

Mike, what brand was the SSD?

[headhawg]

Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage

My solid state drive failed a couple of weeks ago. NO WARNING whatsoever.

Older SSDs had controllers that weren't as robust as the current ones. There's definitely no warning if those fail. As far as the NAND, you really need to monitor SMART regularly with a tool like CrystalDiskInfo or HDTune. You might be able to get some early detection of the impending doom by doing that. Also, if you have Windows on an SSD, make sure to run the manufacturer's "garbage collection" program. TRIM is supposed to work automagically when Windows is idle, but when the system drive is actually idle is another question.

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally Posted by dlgreg

Mike, what brand was the SSD?

It was an OCZ drive...Agility 4...Indilinx controller. It wasn't even two years old and I did periodically monitor SMART data...

Here is the interesting part. It died as I was editing a recorded television program. I was editing the program in part while trying to clear space on the drive, as it was almost full (it only had 19 or 20 gigs free out of 500)....

I read one obscure report on some website of this particular model failing when the drive neared capacity...I hadn't bothered to upgrade the firmware since the week I purchased the drive, so it may have been I was operating the whole time with buggy firmware...

Who knows?

[HoofedInTheChest]

If you are using a SSD, i highly recommend using two drives. Designate one drive for the OS (64 Gig should be plenty) and use a secondary drive for storage and whatnot. Whether it's internal or external it makes no difference, mind you, depending on what type of USB you have, you will probably get faster speeds internally.

If you are using a laptop you are handcuffed with the hardware expansion, to an extent.