SSD drama

[Binnatics]

Hey friends,

As most of you know I'm completely mad about SSD's. They are fast, reliable and, above all, fast! I have two of them in my system. One for the operating system, (being Win Vista 64bit) and another one for precious data like music, pictures, savegames and whatever I decide to have in my digital library. Never had any complaints, I run those two AZC agilty 3 (120Gb) discs for over 2 years now. Never wanted anything else, for sure.

A couple of years ago, in 2011, I built a system for my dad as well. Back then, SSD was still something quite new, and for my dad I wanted security, reliability, as in "never have a fatal crash". So I hooked him up with a RAID-1 set-up built out of two WD 320Gb HDD's. A week ago he rang me up; system has crashed, nothing worked anymore ???
He told me he brought his machine to a local PC-wizard, and that guy told him one of his HDD's went belly up.  The guy pulled the thing out (€40,- for that trick), and with a "critical array" my dad could go on and do his stuff. He told me this, and in fact I was very happy to hear it. It meant that my plan had worked. Due to my RAID-1 set-up in his machine, his system was still working, all his files were saved, and we could puzzle a way to create a new, secure and solid situation.  ^-^

Now here's a little side story to this; my dad is a bit afraid when it comes to PC's. The PC I created for him, had a little flaw. Whenever you shut the thing down, it would immediately go back on. That had something to do with Asrock Instant Boot settings not working properly, and he never told me about it. He just put his system to sleep every time he left the damn thing off. These HDD's must've been working 3 years straight, without pause. No wonder one of them died ::)

I figured out it had to be different this time and thought that an SSD would be the solution. I told him how damn fast these things are, and convinced him in buying an SSD for his system and two new HDD's (500Gb each) for a new RAID-1 array for secure data storage.
And so we did. I backed up all important data on the newly created RAID-1 array and hooked on the SSD to build the new system on. When I introduced the Win7 installation disc and came to the point where you have to choose the location to put your OS on, the trouble began. Somehow, even after installing the newest AMD RAID drivers of his mobo, windows wouldn't recognize the SSD. Wtf :o My dad was sitting next to me, not understanding much of what I was doing, only noticing me getting angrier by the minute. I couldn't find the solution to this issue.  >:((
The weirdest thing was, that BIOS could recognize the disc fine, with no problem. I could even create a RAID-JBOD logical drive with it. Windows could see everything (my newly created RAID-1 array with the two 500Gb HDD's, as well as the older HDD with the old system on it, even an external HDD connected through USB) except the SSD.

I swapped the BIOS settings back to IDE mode, and checked. Now Windows could see the damn SSD, including all other drives. But of course now the RAID option wasn't there anymore. I could even install the OS on the SSD, working fine, but I just couldn't get the damn RAID thing set-up since it really needs the BIOS settings accordingly.  I have tried everything, from changing the SATA plugs to installing the newest drivers, nothing seemed to w@&k. This was all yesterday, and I can tell you I went to bed quite puzzled by the whole situation.

Today I woke up early and decided to do some google searches to locate people with similar problems. I finally found a couple of topics on the Crucial users forum (the SSD I bought is a Crucial MX100 128Gb) where people were experiencing the same problems. They had asus mobo's (my dad has Asrock) and were all experiencing the exact same issue with the Crucial SSD's not being detected by Windows when in RAID mode. Unfortunately, there were no solutions. Some Crucial-forum-admin-dick replied that they should really complain at AMD because it sure was a driver issue, or complain at Asus for creating crappy mobo's, but no solution was given.
Anyway, this search gave me an idea. I thought that maybe the Crucial SSD's have something that refuses to cooperate with both the AMD RAID drivers and windows 7. There were people stating that they could create anything desired with other brand SSD's but not with the crucial ones. I decided to pull out my data SSD (OZC agility 3 series) and check if this SSD would give the same problems on my dad's system. Took it out of my PC, plugged it in my dad's and checked again. Guess what; everything's working fine. :-\\

I told my dad, and suggested we exchange the discs so that we can build his system; he'd loose 8 Gb of space (my SSD's are 120 instead of 128 Gb) but he'd have a proper functioning system. He agreed instantly. Of course I had to check if the crucial SSD would w@&k with my own system ( I also have it running in RAID mode, with an MSI mobo and Intel Raid drivers) but fortunately it worked.

Tomorrow I'm going to finally build his new system. But isn't it weird, that a huge brand like Micron (Crucial) produces SSD's that won't w@&k under RAID mode when hooked to a big variety of mobo's (Asus, Gigabyte, Asrock) using AMD technology and Windows 7 or 8? (with Ubuntu OS the problem did not occur, according to some users on the forum). People started complaining about this issue over a year ago, there have been released 2 newer versions of the Crucial SSD's and there's still no solution to it? 

[Art Blade]

 (;\ :knockout

[Binnatics]

If you're sorry to say, then don't mention. Glad you had a laugh there yourself.

[Art Blade]

that was indeed not a reply I would have expected.

[Art Blade]

I keep thinking about that reply and I don't like it at all as it is insulting. I'd like to see an apology and I'd like to see how the expert explains what really happened with that SSD drama, respectively how to solve that problem.

[Stiku]

If you're sorry to say, then don't mention. Glad you had a laugh there yourself.

Actually your posting was insulting towards others, blaming the "dick-admin-forum" guy for giving a legit advice, was abit over the top and insulting towards him and other support personel, which I have been, also gotten my share of customer blames that have not been my fault or we only have been following what has been told to us.

Heres some advices:
- Consumers buying IT hardware are to be expected to check for compatibility issues themselves, also in Europe we have 14 days to return the merchandise to the shop for a full refund, incase of an incompatibility or other issues.

- Reporting a problem to the right party, and place will give the information to fix the issues to the right personel.
- Crucial(Marvel & Micron chips) is using SATA standards when communicating with other interfaces, so blaming them is wrong.
- SSD's aren't reliable, every 1/3 users have problems regarding them, most of them are storage maintaining.

Your issues is a simple compatibility issues, which needs to be reported to the right authorities, not by chucking it aside, also MX100 drives are 4 months, not 2yrs. on a side note, Crucial drives are very unreliable, people have reported issues with these drives, mostly not holding data correctly, this is why I didnt buy one, but opted for a more expensive Samsung drive myself.

[Art Blade]

OK, from my point of view this has been a case of hurt feelings, independent from each other.

Binnatics expected help but the support's response didn't satisfy him so he was frustrated and vented off here; Stiku identified himself with that support guy and shared his point of view so the "customer's" response seemed not to acknowledge a correct reply which in turn was frustrating or even insulting for the support guys.

Well. I don't want to press an explicit "sorry" as I can understand both sides now. I accept that reply as an apology and I appreciate the advice.

Now I hope that the real issue, the "SSD drama," gets solved, too.  :)

[Binnatics]

The problem was solved already. Today I did a clean install of Win7 on the OCZ SSD that I exchanged for the Crucial one, and everything went as supposed. The Crucial SSD in return works fine under my own system, which has intel raid drivers and an MSI mobo.

Regarding the Dick-customer support guy; I won't apologize for that. It's too easy to redirect difficult questions to the other parties involved, Asus and AMD in this case. Reading through the entire (two) topics about the reported compatibility-problems learnt that the Crucial SSD's were the only ones having this problem so the company should at least be interested in the origin of all the complaints.
Simply pointing at other parties without really looking into the problem is an easy way to avoid taking responsibility for a product, and THAT is something that I as a customer hate the most. If this problem was a known compatibility issue, it would have been common knowledge on the net and easy to find.
It was not. And therefore we have indeed IT experts, who get paid to clear these things out and find solutions, something you can't expect from a hobbyist PC builder. Crucial and its support panel didn't so I have the right to complain about it.

Stiku, I understand you explanation. That's something I can handle and I wouldn't feel offended if you shared your regard and opinion. What you did was simply degrading my effort into something foolish. I'd appreciate it if you start with the explanation next time.

[fragger]

Firstly: I would have loved to have been able to help you Binn, but I know about as much about SSDs as I do about macrame (nothing, just to clarify :-()).

Secondly: The earlier exchange demonstrates why I love this site. Both parties had a gripe to voice and both did so without resorting to filthy language, personality attacks or out-and-out name-calling. If this was just about any other place on the net there would have been crude and flaming insults flying back and forth for post after post.

I admire you both for arguing your cases in such a mature and civilized manner :-X This is the proper way to resolve disputes - by clarification, a reasonable exchange of points of view and by respectful acceptance of the other party's argument. And thank you both for not allowing yourselves to fly off the handle. I'd hate to see this site become like so many others out there, where insult and belligerence are the main operating principles.

If OWG ever starts to go that way I'll be out of here, but given the intelligence and integrity of its members I can't see that ever happening.

:-))

[Art Blade]

Amen. :)

[PZ]

Nicely said, fragger  :-X

[Binnatics]

Thank you Fragger, and I'm with you there. Except for the leaving part; I'd make them behave ;)

[Art Blade]

hey, that's my job. :-D

[Stiku]

Just want to clarify this, AMD has put huge campaing's around by their feelers(Forum representer), that they explicitly WANT you to report issues with their hardware, also they have asked all other OEM guys to inform customer to report problems with their system to them, if it concerns them, not via a another company.

The main problem with AMD is that most users just ignore if they have an error with the product, or live with it, but never report it to anywhere else than than some help forum which they don't have access to.

Also Crucial seems to follow the basic business production plan set in place in majority of the ICT-companies, which actually calculates, how much a single user ticket costs to them via support, and if they can foward the customer to another site that is closer to the right source, the cheaper it gets, this is a norm in IT, not bad customer support.

In the company that I w@&k, single ticket that is just fowarded to the OEM goes like this :
- User support person 10min / 25€,
- ticket handling 10min / 25€ (contains compiling the ticket, getting all the data from the user, seeking earlier cases, combining it as a child if other cases found... ),
- contacting the OEM, filling their support request with the users error, getting every information what they need. 20min / 55€(done by a 2nd level support person also known as back-end support)

So just a simple foward gets alot more expensive, than resolving the problem right away, which usually is 10min USS and ticket handling.

[Binnatics]

That is a clear explanation, and completely logic to my point of view. I think I would do the same when I worked for a big company like Crucial or AMD and had to manage the customer support desk.  8)

I myself on the other end have never worked for big IT companies, I w@&k for the government. Our government has the bad habit to want everything when it comes to ICT stuff, without much knowledge of it. The result is a half grown ICT management department that tries to maintain all ICT projects running through the entire country (centralized because it's cheaper ::)) combined with half covered maintenance contracts with numerous ICT companies that deliver the endless desires to this government.
That creates a situation where all the different customer support desks we on the working ground have to deal with do nothing but redirecting questions to the next desk. All these desks get paid for every 'call' they except, whether or not they solve the case; the government pays for every handling, not per solved case. 
It's the holy "from pillar to post" principle, that arms us simple floor employees (and managers) to the teeth before even shooting in an ICT related question.

Maybe that background coloured my point of view concerning customer support guys from mayor companies.  :-D

On a side note; I also reported my issue with this Crucial SSD to the company where I bought the disk. Before they had the time to look into my question, I had already found a solution to it by exchanging the SSD with one in my own system, so I let them know that my problem was solved. Today however, I got a reply from them, where they explained that just recently they had another customer with the same problem, which brought his system to their help desk. They also came to the final conclusion that the only working alternative was another SSD, so they replaced the SSD the customer bought for an older version which did solve the problem there.
Of course they offered me the same replacement, which I thankfully declined. But it was good to know that they had stumbled upon the same (unknown) problem without a proper answer to it. ;)

hey, that's my job. :-D

I know, but if you ever need any help... :)

[Art Blade]

 :-X :)

[Binnatics]

Well, the SSD drama wasn't half over, or I stumbled into another sigh unsolvable issue; my dad's "All-in-one network printer" failed to be properly installed.
It had been working on his machine ever since he bought it, without any trouble, but somehow since I re-installed his OS on the new SSD/HDD set-up, the computer suddenly was unable to communicate with it. Through the same USB cable as before, with the same damn drivers as before (I checked that all out) >:(
I tried again and again with different drivers, different settings and in a different order but every time when the driver had to make connection with the printer, it failed. In the mean time, windows was, on the background, installing a device driver as if it was a scanner that I just hooked up ????
After that, it would function as a scanner, but not as a printer. Weird s#!t. I decided to boot from the old drive, and see if it could w@&k with the previous installation. Not a problem at all, what the ....

I gave it a go and called Epson customer support. Explained the whole issue, and they came to the following conclusion: "The printer works fine, as you just described; The driver software works fine, as you just described as well, so the problem HAS TO be found in your new OS configuration, or related hardware driver instalments. So we wish you a pleasant day and won't help you any further. Good luck calling Windows customer support" >:(( >:(( >:((

I did. I called windows customer support. I found a very helpful guy, that listened me out and gave me a proper suggestion right away; "Try running Epson's driver-program as an administrator. That might be required, and somehow Epson's software fails to notice you about it. He also suggested that I'd look up the USB drivers and try to get newer ones for that." I asked him if I could get more support when this wouldn't w@&k out, and he then told me that this was possible. This would cost me €85,- :o (more than the price of a new printer :D), since it is not part of the general Win 7 support contracts. And even then it could turn out to be a non-windows-related issue which would result in the conclusion that I had to contact whatever other customer support to get the problem solved. :-\\

I let it rest a couple of days. I had other things to do and my dad could do without his printer for a week or so. In the mean time, I got a reply to an e-mail I sent to Epson's customer support online help desk earlier that day. The guy responding to my questions had certainly a different idea of customer support than the lady I spoke to earlier. He did a couple of suggestions that made sense. Basically he listed a variety of USB drivers that are known to cause the driver installation program to malfunction. This possible solution, plus the suggestion I got from the windows guy, were my new possible solutions for the job when I went to my father's house today to give it another try.
However, I decided to grab an Ethernet cable with me just in case. I could always try to bypass the USB connection and connect the PC to the printer through the modem if nothing would w@&k.
When I arrived at my dad's house, I immediately checked his modem; it had 4 ports available and only 2 in use. So I decided to no longer go for difficult strolls through the land of drivers, settings, forums etc. and hooked up the printer in the local network right away. Checked the PC's list of available printers and guess what I saw; the Epson Stylus Office BX525WD... installing driver software... the device is ready to use... What the f@#k!!!!!!

And we live happily ever after ^-^

[PZ]

I think we all have stories something like that, Binn.  Just goes to show you that few people are willing to help - the "not my problem" attitude - unless you pay, of course.  I had something similar with an HP printer not too long ago.  W7 just would not run the drivers, and after a few gyrations, I managed to get them installed.  The only problem is that now three printers are listed, and only one of them works.  However, if you uninstall any of the two that don't w@&k, then none of them do.

[Art Blade]

 :-()

Binnatics, what makes me wonder is why the support didn't ask/suggest your own solution, simple as it is.

[Binnatics]

You have a point there, Art.
Maybe because of the same reason why I came up with this alternative so late; I didn't think it possible due to the fact that my dad had a 'simple' local network with a 'simple' modem, and I didn't realise either that the modem happens to be a meter away from the PC, which is a little distance when it comes to Ethernet cables :-D

[Binnatics]

... However, if you uninstall any of the two that don't w@&k, then none of them do.

Crazy. Whatever; all this bugging around and finally finding solutions does keep me busy and I do get a proper boost of satisfaction when I finally get things done indeed. Probably why I will stick to the PC forever :-D

[Art Blade]

 ;D

[Stiku]

I think we all have stories something like that, Binn.  Just goes to show you that few people are willing to help - the "not my problem" attitude - unless you pay, of course.  I had something similar with an HP printer not too long ago.  W7 just would not run the drivers, and after a few gyrations, I managed to get them installed.  The only problem is that now three printers are listed, and only one of them works.  However, if you uninstall any of the two that don't w@&k, then none of them do.

Known issue with HP drivers, to get only one, requires that you only install the parent MFC and then add the printer manually to the system.
You should have seen the PSG (Printer Service Group, a department inside HP) who dealt with these drivers, and they hated every minute of their lives.

For Binnatics :
This is the actual problem with SS(SupportServices), different person can have different skills, when it comes to knowledge of the situation and windows, its like a lottery who you get into the line to help you out, some graps the situation almost instantly and while others struggle to even tell you to reboot the computer.
Btw, did you connect the printer before or during the installation of the printer, this is actually one of the most annoying thing but in most cases, if you connect the printer first, windows will load default USB port drivers for the parent device, thus it wont recognize the printer while installing because those stupid windows default USB drivers don't support child devices. Hard to fix, but first you have to remove all the INF for the device, the purge the windows registery for the device ID's and start all over from scratch.

[PZ]

Sounds like you really know your hardware, Stiku +1  :-X

[Art Blade]

lol you beat me to it, PZ 

+1 :-X from me, too