Arch Linux

Meikj

Member

From: Glasgow

Registered: 2009-01-07

Posts: 21

Samsung 840 EVO Bricked?

I recently installed the new firmware on my Samsung 840 EVO 128GB SSD through Windows. For context, when I bought this SSD I immediately installed Arch Linux on it (so it was using original firmware at that time). This ran smoothly for several months, no problem. I then stopped using Arch Linux for another several months, and when I came back to it I wanted to do a fresh installation (no other reason than just to keep things fresh). Before doing this, I seen that Samsung released new firmware to address problems. To install this firmware, I formatted the drive in Windows and used the Magician software to do the firmware upgrade. After this, I formatted the drive in Arch Linux using fdisk and mkfs.ext4 as per wiki instructions. This all worked fine, as did the installation of the system.

However... there came a point in time where I was installing many packages using Pacman and I was hit with a message very similar, if not identical, to this:

ata2.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
ata2.00: error: { UNC }
ata2.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
ata2.00: cmd 60/28:70:28:19:89/00:00:6c:01:00/40 tag 14 ncq 20480 in
res 41/40:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x9 (media error)

These messages would repeat in intervals showing no sign of stopping. I had to mash Ctrl+Z/X/C (can't remember which one worked) to exit out of the process, which finally worked. Then I looked into the problem and seen that disabling NCQ will fix the problem, so I followed instructions from this link: http://www.itechlounge.net/2013/07/linu … ma-queued/

After performing this, I tried to perform a reboot, but apparently reboot could not be found. This is when I realised by entire Arch installation is now FUCKED because clearly disk corruption has occured. I reboot using the reboot button on the tower, and now the BIOS does not recognise the SSD. I tried booting into GParted Live -- it too also does not recognise the SSD. In fact, it spewed something about a "COMERESET" 3-4 times during boot in relation to the SSD until eventually cancelling the reset process and continuing. The SSD does not show up in the GParted software.

Is my SSD bricked? What the fuck wrecked it to a state of non-recognition? The SSD has worked with Linux completely fine before this firmware update. What do you propose I do?

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: Samsung 840 EVO Bricked?

What do you propose I do?

1. Check the cables and connectors

2. Stop swearing.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Samsung 840 EVO Bricked?

You can try this:

1. Plug in the drive's SATA power cable *only* (not the data cable)
2. Boot the PC and let it sit for around 30 minutes.
3. With the PC power still on, plug in the SATA data cable.  Do not disconnect the power.
4. Press the PC's reset switch.

But don't blame me if it makes the situation worse.

Meikj

Member

From: Glasgow

Registered: 2009-01-07

Posts: 21

Re: Samsung 840 EVO Bricked?

I've now managed to get the BIOS to recognise the SSD, so thankfully it is not bricked. Perhaps that problem was indeed due to a loose connection. However, the messages I had been receiving as a result of package installation is still a problem. I don't think it really has anything to do with package installation per se, more read/writing to disk, which package installation does extensively. After further research, it seems likely that it is related to TRIM as discussed here: https://plus.google.com/+supercurioFran … Qmsz4wL5Mc

I think to solve this problem, I will need to disable TRIM in the mean time, and hope that this issue will be resolved by Samsung soon because it seems to be an issue a number people are having with the latest firmware update.

Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated.

jlp2

Member

Registered: 2013-11-06

Posts: 5

Re: Samsung 840 EVO Bricked?

It is not a problem with TRIM, it is a problem with NCQ and TRIM.

Seemed, that there is a general proplem with the new Samsung-firmwares and the NCQ-Trim functions:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=196267

As a workaround:

Disable NCQ on that drive, for example, if you using GRUB and your drive is ata1:

sudo sed -i s/'quiet'/'quiet libata.force=1.00:noncq'/g /etc/default/grub
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Wiki:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/So … NCQ_errors

Last edited by jlp2 (2015-05-06 08:29:08)