m.2 SSD Cold Boot Issues

[laptopfurthermore]

Hi All,

I have a very perculiar issue that has been racking my head for months!

When cold booting I get the error "reboot and select proper boot device or import boot media in selected boot device and press a key"

I checked bios and the m.2 ssd is showing as 0gb in the main screen and not showing at all under UEFI.

So I figure its a bad drive - open the laptop and remove the SSD and try it on anothe computer. No errors and the drive appears fine. i reinstall and try again to no avail.

After powering off and on at least 25-30 times all of a sudden the PCSpecialist splash screen shows and the laptop boots normally.

If I put the laptop to "sleep" and then reinitiate then there are zero problems every single time. If the laptop crashes or shutsdown and needs a cold boot then every time I am back to the "reboot" error.

Kingston SSD manager shows the drive as 90% health and overall "healthy"

Very confusing!

Does anyone have any idea what the issue could possibly be? I bought this laptop quite a long time ago and this issue has been present for the last year or so - the only changes from spec below are the laptop is now running windows 10 - all firmware appears to be upto date but I have not updated motherboard/bios at all and the bios currently on here is very restricted by PCSpecialist.

Any input would be greatly appreciated - outside of this the laptop works a dream and is 9 years old (credit to build quality of PCSpecialst) but I have to keep the laptop plugged in and only use sleep/wake as a workaround

Laptop Spec:

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB Kingston SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M - 4.0GB DDR5, 1152 CUDA Cores - DirectX® 11
1st Storage Drive
750GB WD BLACK 2.5" WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
2nd/3rd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY (12.7mm)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Battery
Vortex 15.6" Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT

Kingston SSD Manager Data:

#KSM:1.1.2.6#

##### Smart Export - Kingston SSD Manager - Version 1.1.2.6 #####

Current time is: Tue Dec 5 10:44:28 2023

Device Path: \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2
Vendor/Model: KINGSTON SMS200S3120G
Serial #: 50026B724504B251
Firmware: 524ABBF0_28180

Id [hex] - Description:
---------------------------------------------
Norm Worst Thresh Raw Flags

======================================================

1 [0x01] - Read Error Rate:
---------------------------------------------
95 95 50 0x0000000001e6662f 0x33,SP,EC,OC,PW

5 [0x05] - Bad Block Count:
---------------------------------------------
100 100 3 0x0000000000000000 0x33,SP,EC,OC,PW

9 [0x09] - Power On Hours:
---------------------------------------------
10 10 0 0x0022335a00013738 0x32,SP,EC,OC

12 [0x0c] - Power Cycles:
---------------------------------------------
100 100 0 0x00000000000000a0 0x32,SP,EC,OC

171 [0xab] - Program Fail Count:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000000000 0x0a,ER,OC

172 [0xac] - Erase Fail Count:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000000000 0x32,SP,EC,OC

174 [0xae] - Unexpected Power Loss:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000000017 0x30,SP,EC

177 [0xb1] - Wear Leveling Range Percent:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000000002 0x00

181 [0xb5] - Program Fail Count:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000000000 0x0a,ER,OC

182 [0xb6] - Erase Fail Count:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000000000 0x32,SP,EC,OC

187 [0xbb] - Uncorrectable ECC Errors:
---------------------------------------------
100 100 0 0x0000000000000000 0x12,EC,OC

194 [0xc2] - Temperature:
---------------------------------------------
47 74 0 0x0000000b004a002f 0x22,SP,OC

195 [0xc3] - RAISE Recovered:
---------------------------------------------
120 120 0 0x0000000001e6662f 0x1c,EC,ER,PE

196 [0xc4] - Reallocation Events:
---------------------------------------------
100 100 3 0x0000000000000000 0x33,SP,EC,OC,PW

201 [0xc9] - Uncorrectable Soft ECC Rate:
---------------------------------------------
120 120 0 0x0000000001e6662f 0x1c,EC,ER,PE

204 [0xcc] - Soft ECC Correction Rate:
---------------------------------------------
120 120 0 0x0000000001e6662f 0x1c,EC,ER,PE

230 [0xe6] - Drive Life Protection Status:
---------------------------------------------
100 100 0 0x0000000000000064 0x13,EC,OC,PW

231 [0xe7] - SSD Wear Indicator:
---------------------------------------------
90 90 10 0x0000000000000001 0x13,EC,OC,PW

233 [0xe9] - Lifetime Nand Writes:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x000000000000a4ae 0x32,SP,EC,OC

234 [0xea] - Lifetime Host Writes:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000005caf 0x32,SP,EC,OC

241 [0xf1] - Lifetime Host Writes:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000005caf 0x32,SP,EC,OC

242 [0xf2] - Lifetime Host Reads:
---------------------------------------------
0 0 0 0x0000000000003e96 0x32,SP,EC,OC

 

[SpyderTracks]

Are you using bitlocker at all?

 

[laptopfurthermore]

No not using bitlocker and secure boot is also disabled in bios

 

[SpyderTracks]

No not using bitlocker and secure boot is also disabled in bios

That is odd. It may be worth pinging PCS for a BIOS update, it's certainly the first thing I'd want updated given the drive is showing as 0b in the BIOS itself. That would suggest that although it's being detected, the drive itself is locked for reading (which would imply write locked also)

Just wondering though, have you formatted the secondary drive at all before this issue occured? Just wondering as on some older systems, when creating a boot drive and a secondary drive was present, windows would sometimes mistakenly place some of the boot partition data on the secondary drive

Also, have you recently run any chkdsk operations on that drive that were prematurely exited? A chkdsk /f will actually put a lock flag on the drive and if exited before the chkdsk is complete, that flag can get stuck. I came across this fairly recently and found a low level command based tool that was incredibly helpful, that may well be a good tool to check this drive weather or not that's the case to see if that flag has somehow been set.

 

[laptopfurthermore]

Thank you so much for your replies:

My thoughts at the moment seem to be it must be BIOS/Motherboard related but I am reluctant to make too many changes there without guidance from someone who knows better - I'll drop PCS a message to see if they have an update. The Laptop was bought in 2014 and upgraded to Win10 sometime after so may be just a bios or motherboard update is the culprit.

I haven't ever formatted the 2nd drive - that is used for work related data. There is a 3rd drive used for media data (i just noticed that isnt in the spec above for some reason). C: m.2 ssd - OS (Bus No:5), D: Sata HDD - work data (Bus No:0) & E: Sata HDD - media data (Bus No:3)

I ran a chkdsk today that saw no errors but I certainly couldn't say 100% if a chkdsk failed or was aborted previously - it doesn't come to mind but I will certainly keep an eye out.

My only other suspicion was: is it possible that the drive/power to drive is taking some time to fire up the SSD or not firing at all? It is my understanding that it is on the PCIe, maybe a power issue there? It would explain why sleep/wake works as power may be kept on to the SSD in that case? The battery of the laptop does seem to be dead as it only lasts around 2-5mins off mains but my knowledge there is lacking.

Excuse me if that is way off, my knowledge of the internals on laptops isnt the best although researching over the last few months for this has probably improved it slightly - then again a little knowledge can be dangerous!

Thanks again

 

[SpyderTracks]

My only other suspicion was: is it possible that the drive/power to drive is taking some time to fire up the SSD or not firing at all? It is my understanding that it is on the PCIe, maybe a power issue there?

It’s an old mSATA drive, PCIe drives didn’t exist for a while after that. mSATA was the first move away from 2.5” external drives.

 

[laptopfurthermore]

Ahh ok, understood - so it would seem a BIOS/MB update would be the only real avenue to pursue at this point in your opinion? (obviously outside of a chkdsk / disk lock)

 

[davhun]

No not using bitlocker and secure boot is also disabled in bios

If you search 'msconfig' to find the system configuration, and then open the 'boot' drop down menu, what is the selected boot drive. If it is not your m2 drive then you need to redefine the boot drive. This might be easier by downloading the free version of EasyBCD.
When Windows is first installed, both the system partition and windows partition are both on the same drive. Over time this may no longer be the case if other drives are used for the OS(s). However, if all the known OS locations are in the system configuration it is only a matter of selection during a cold boot.

 

[laptopfurthermore]

If you search 'msconfig' to find the system configuration, and then open the 'boot' drop down menu, what is the selected boot drive. If it is not your m2 drive then you need to redefine the boot drive. This might be easier by downloading the free version of EasyBCD.
When Windows is first installed, both the system partition and windows partition are both on the same drive. Over time this may no longer be the case if other drives are used for the OS(s). However, if all the known OS locations are in the system configuration it is only a matter of selection during a cold boot.

thanks fo the suggestion: In msconfig/boot it is showing as the correct drive currently

 

[davhun]

thanks fo the suggestion: In msconfig/boot it is showing as the correct drive currently

OK, have to think again then.