Intel X25-M FIRMWARE BRICKS DRIVES DO NOT UPDATE!!

[dangel]

DO NOT APPLY THE INTEL SSD UPDATE - it is bricking drives!

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...r_release.html

http://communities.intel.com/thread/...art=0&tstart=0



I've already done it, rebooted and it worked fine for the first boot - I may yet have problems on the next boot though (crap)

[GheeTsar]

Thanks for the heads up. I was going to do mine last night but went to the pub instead! How fortunate. Hope yours is ok and won't brick itself later.

[PeterStoba]

This again? Didn't it happen on gen1 too, makes you wonder if they even test these firmwares.

[dangel]

Very annoying - no idea if i'm to lose my drive/data now - I almost don't dare turn on the PC!

[pollaxe]

Good luck Dangel, let us know how you get on.

[dangel]

My only hope is that my intel RAID controller fails to send TRIM commands - it might be the crucial thing that stops corruption from occuring. I'm going to do an offline image of the drive tonight (pre-windows) although I do have a backup from a week or so ago.

[arthurleung]

Intel did state backup data before updating...Annoyance though if drive is completely bricked and cannot be recovered unless RMAing.

[shaithis]

The worst thing about this is that availability of the drives is already poor, a lot of RMAs may result in even fewer drives being available for a while....

[dangel]

Intel did state backup data before updating...Annoyance though if drive is completely bricked and cannot be recovered unless RMAing.

Well yes, but intel also ought to of bloody well tested it too

I do have backups (fortunately) but really the headline selling points of SSDs include 'reliability'
If this isn't a flash-able fix then i'm going to be missing a drive for weeks no doubt. I just hope they announce their analysis soon!

[Champman99]

Thanks for the heads up, mine is waiting for me when I get home on Friday and the first thing I was going to do was update the firmware....

Sigh the thing that finally tipped me over the edge into SSD-dom was this drive getting TRIM support. Any news on when/whether this is getting fixed, I dont want to update my drive if there is any risk to it, RMA's are such a pain.

[dangel]

No news yet but i'm waiting patiently for intel to annouce *something* - so far they've only said they're looking to see IF there is a problem. A fix could be a while away.

The drive worked really well before so stick with the original firmware and enjoy it.

[dangel]

OK well i managed to image the drive offline before booting windows..

So.. a couple of reboots later i'm typing this on the same pc and it seems to work.. so far. Done a few updates etc. nothing dramatic, time will tell. TRIM is enabled in windows, i'm using the intel RAID controller driver and the controller is in RAID (not AHCI) mode. I updated the drive on the other controlled in IDE mode before swapping it back to the intel one.

Fingers crossed but at least i'm not going to lose any data if the drive does drop dead!
Probably.

[scaryjim]

Fingers crossed but at least i'm not going to lose any data if the drive does drop dead!
Probably.

The solution is clear: don't do any work for a couple of weeks, and blame it on not wanting to risk it while the drive is at risk

[LaughingJon]

heya all

i actually updated mine before i knew about all these problems. i have the 160gig version and am running on a Asus P6TD. I setup the bios in AHCI mode before booting off the CD and updated it literally as the first thing i did with the PC. i then installed windows 7 and things seem to be ok so far. so it seems i did things totally wrong by enabling AHCI mode from the off ><

while i dont want to go too offtopic i do have one question someone maybe able to help with is. how the heck do i tell if its actually running in AHCI mode. (i didnt install any drivers during the windows install at all, just let it run *blush*)

i ran a speed test which is here:
http://www.laughingjon.com/ulpics/temp/ssd_speed.png

but its showing as IDE and every other screen shot i saw shows SCSI.

in device manager under:

IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller i am showing:
Intel(R) ICH10R Sata AHCI Controller

but downloaded some drivers from intels site and ran them to get this here.

Cheers
Jon

[Agent]

Slightly OT, but probably not worth a new thread for such a simple question.

Has the price of these drives rocketed at Scan? I remember it being around £170ish?

[Champman99]

Slightly OT, but probably not worth a new thread for such a simple question.

Has the price of these drives rocketed at Scan? I remember it being around £170ish?

I ordered one on Friday at £167 (5 days ago)

So yes it seems they have increased somehwat. I assume it was based on the number of orders they got when it was out of stock, alot of etailers have forumalaes to set prices based on supply and demand I think so with very limited supply and high demand, the formula wouldve started increasing prices.

Again, a bit off topic - Although its a bit irrelevant because the firmware has been pulled, but I was under the impression TRIM only worked under AHCI, and yet seems people have it working under RAID?

Im confused, what is the "best" way of me running my single X25-M 80GB on a P5K-Deluxe for a clean W7 installation and beyond.