Win 7 SSD freezes during check/image then reboots

[mrktvalu]

I don't know if this is a harware issue with my SSD, disk controller (motherboard), power supply or something else, but depending on what I'm doing, the computer will operate for a few minutes then freeze and eventually reboot itself. When it reboots, I get the "Bootmgr is Missing" message until I cycle power a couple of times. I've tried booting from the Windows 7 repair disk and typing "bootrec /fixboot", but the problem eventually returns.

I can't get a full image update from Acronis because it hangs in the middle of the image, even if I say to ignore bad sectors. If I run the HDTune diagnostic on the SSD, it seems to always stop after about 3 minutes and always in the same spot, at 15,432MB. Is this a problem with the SSD or the disk controller?

Confguration:

O/S: OS Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-S2
CPU: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 840 Processor, 3200 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date: Award Software International, Inc. F13, 8/31/2010
SSD: Microcenter SSD G2 series 64GB ATA Device
HDD: Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 ATA Device (1TB)
RAM: 8GB

 

[RetiredChief]

Did you:
1) disconnect old HDD prior to installing windows
2) did you do the Instal with the Bios set to AHCI
3) what driver does AS SSD so: Not IDE = Bad, For AMD should be msahci, or AMD equivalent. Can download and run, do not need to run Benchmark, just look at upper left. Also lates SSD firmware install ?? also upper left of As SSD.
4) Please tel me you did not image your HDD to SSD.

 

[mrktvalu]

Did you:
1) disconnect old HDD prior to installing windows
2) did you do the Instal with the Bios set to AHCI
3) what driver does AS SSD so: Not IDE = Bad, For AMD should be msahci, or AMD equivalent. Can download and run, do not need to run Benchmark, just look at upper left. Also lates SSD firmware install ?? also upper left of As SSD.
4) Please tel me you did not image your HDD to SSD.

1) disconnect old HDD prior to installing windows / YES.

2) did you do the Instal with the Bios set to AHCI / NO, This was my 1st Win7 and SSD install and it took a couple of tries. By the time I got the virgin O/S installed to the SSD, I realized that the BIOS had reverted to IDE mode.

3) what driver does AS SSD so: Not IDE = Bad, For AMD should be msahci, or AMD equivalent. Can download and run, do not need to run Benchmark, just look at upper left. Also lates SSD firmware install ?? also upper left of As SSD. / Not sure what you mean or exactly where to look. MSACHI is installed but not active.

4) Please tel me you did not image your HDD to SSD / NO. The O/S and Visual Studio are on the SSD and the remainder of programs and data are on 1TB E: drive.

The system just started behaving like this after a big windows update. Thanks for your help.

 

[RetiredChief]

On AS SSD
If you down load/install/then run.
In the upper left it will display:
.. SSD model
.. Firmware revision: Not sure what the lastest ver is for Your SSD. You indicated microcenter G2. Is this just a rebranded Intel G2 ??
.. Driver. Unles you loaded a AMD driver this should show msahci (the default MS driver that is loaded with windows install.
.. Partition alignment. Should show OK as you did a clean install and windows recognizes SSD and alignes the partition correctly.

If the driver is listed as IDE, You can correct this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/244840-32-convert-sata-ahci-vista

 

[mrktvalu]

On AS SSD
If you down load/install/then run.
In the upper left it will display:
.. SSD model
.. Firmware revision: Not sure what the lastest ver is for Your SSD. You indicated microcenter G2. Is this just a rebranded Intel G2 ??
.. Driver. Unles you loaded a AMD driver this should show msahci (the default MS driver that is loaded with windows install.
.. Partition alignment. Should show OK as you did a clean install and windows recognizes SSD and alignes the partition correctly.

If the driver is listed as IDE, You can correct this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/244840-32-convert-sata-ahci-vista

Downloaded AS SSD but "nein spreken-zie deutch" so I didn't run the benchmarks. The alignment is OK and the driver is pciide.

 

[RetiredChief]

I don't speck german iether - LOL, There is an english version avail - Have to run
Need to correct that PCIDE driver issue

 

[mrktvalu]

This is an update on the resolution of my SSD freezing issue. Initially, I wasn’t sure whether it was SSD, controller, motherboard, RAM, or power supply, but at this point I’m pretty sure it was a SSD malfunction. I am reluctant to say definitively because I just could not find the right tool to diagnose the SSD.

The smoking gun was that chkdsk, HDTune, and Acronis would all fail at the same spot when reading the drive. Unfortunately, I could not find a non-destructive repair tool and my last-good image of the SSD was about 6 days old, and could not make a current image, but I had good current images of the remainder of the system.

So I went down to Microcenter and bought a new OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD to replace the problematic Microcenter rebranded A-DATA 64GB SSD, and restored my 6-day-old image to it. Boots fine, except for some non-existent registry entries from recently-installed programs and windows updates which are not reflected on the HDD.

If anyone happens to know of a good SSD diagnostic utility for non-destructive repairs, please let me know. I've tried HD Tune, chkdsk, SSDlife, and SSD Tweak, but could not find anything that could successfully repair my malfunctioning SSD, at least while it was the "hot" Windows 7 host.

RetiredChief, thanks for your help in this analysis.

 

[mrktvalu]

Best answer selected by mrktvalu.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey