Reformat Samsung SSD help please.

GPR

GPR

GPR

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16 May 2012
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83
Hi,
I have just installed my Samsung 256Gb 830 series SSD drive in my new computer. I found driver problems and contacted support and they explained to me I have to reinstall windows 7. I did this,booted from CD etc:
Deleted windows.old but now I have used nearly 60Gb buy reinstalling Windows 7.
I used Custom install not upgrade, and it warned me all data would be lost and a folder called windows.old would be created.

I contacted support and they explained I needed to completely reformat my SSD by going into ADVANCED when reinstalling. I have read you must not reformat a SSD drive.

I tried to use Samsung's magician software this does not work correctly.
I have tried to contact Samsung but there support is very poor in the UK.
 
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I would say you need to secure erase it, but im not sure on the Samsungs as i think they use toggle nand flash, so best doing a Google search first and finding more info on that.
 
Hi,
I have been looking but nothing. Samsung do not want to help at all , I even telephoned the USA support.

The Samsung magician software I followed the instructions to create a a CD/USB, booted to both drives as I tried both , the view of the software on screen is so distorted you cannot read anything. [ All my drivers for graphics are up to date]

It's just the support for SSD drives, nothing.

If you telephone Samsung UK they direct you to Samsunghdd.com which is seagate .com ,I telephoned and was informed they donot support SSD drives and I must go back to Samsung.

Wow I wish I had not gone to Samsung.

I tried Samsung head office to try and explain the problem about Seagate not supporting SSD drives. I was told by 2 receptionists there is know one here that can help you, please go back to Seagate as all support was given to Seagate in December 2011 for support on SSD drives.
 
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Likewise on my sandisk extreme which also uses toggle nand. I tried to image a HDD but failed. Ended up reformatting with no issues.

When reinstalling windows I deleted the partition and allowed win7 to install in unallocated space. it created the 100Mb system partition and the c:/ partition.

My offset is 103424k which is correct for 100Mb + 1024k.
 
Looking to get a Samsung SSD soon myself - I didn't think SSD's would ever suffer from bad sectors, I thought only physical drives had that?

From what I know, Windows 7 only does a quick format anyway for a custom install, so I don't think there is a full format during the install process.
 
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The bit that worried me was when I reformatted size went from 238Gb to 190Gb
I deleted to windows.old folder.
 
ShortWarning said:
I thought it was ok to quick format because all it does is 0 the SSD?

I could easily be wrong. :)
Click to expand...

It is okay to quick format almost any SSD to restore performance, I have no idea why everyone is so obsessed with secure erasing, the only drives that need secure erasing is Sandforce based ones due to the lifetime write throttling they emplyo.
 
When installing Windows on a SSD drive, which has got my previous install on, all I do is to go under advanced install and then delete the partition(s) on the SSD drive. Then I simply install Windows again on the drive. I do not format the drive when I follow that process.
In the whole scheme of things you aren't going to bork your drive just because you formatted it the once.

In regards to Samsung's tech support they are absolutely and totally rubbish - I found this out some time ago when they released a 2TB HD which had constant problems, eventually they had an updated firmware available.
Their technical support over the phone and website information is appalling and I totally avoided buying their HD's again, no matter how cheap they were, because of that.

WD for me have been superb with phenomenal technical support over the phone and great with their advanced replacement drives.
 
What driver problems were you having exactly?
The Samsung 830 is a SATA compliant SSD, and doesn't need drivers. However you may need drivers for your motherboard chipset, SATA controller, network adapter, graphics card, etc. So to be fair to Samsung, you were probably asking them for advise on something unrelated to their product.
If you've 'lost' some free space then go into disk management and post a screenshot of what partitions you have on the disk - by default you should normally have a 100MB system reserved partition with the rest as your 'C' drive. You may be better off gathering the relevant drivers and utilities and doing a clean reinstall following the various installation guides. There should be no need to do a zero fill/secure erase but if you do it will delete all partitions and make the windows installer only give you the option of a fresh install.
I'm not sure what you were trying to do with the samsung magician software, but it has worked ok for me - as far as I know the create cd/usb option is only for doing a firmware update (and if you bought it recently it should have the latest version on it).
 
Delete and remake the partition at windows setup, SSDs aren't complicated at all. Done this hundreds of times with SSDs with no effect on health.
 
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