Samsung EVO 250gb woes

Azibs · 30 Oct 2013 at 23:04

Hope someone can help here. Having trouble with my Samsung EVO 250Gb. Firstly I bought another drive (a 120Gb version) at the same time and installed that in my dad's PC without any problem after a fresh install of Windows 7.

I've tried doing a fresh install of my own drive in AHCI mode which fails/stops early on during the installation process. Can't remember the error message I get unfortunately but basically says that it isn't able to install Windows.

Have tried in IDE mode which took several attempts to install. Once installed, it might work for a short time but then when I reboot I'm getting WINDOWS BOOT MANAGER, fail to start errors.

Have tried using the Samsung Magician to clone from my existing Windows installation (on RAID Samsung F3 1TB) as well but getting the same errors. Have left it in RAID mode but it made no difference. It typically states that ntoskrnl.exe is missing but others include:

winload.exe
volsnap.sys
iaStorA.sys
volmgrx.sys
Ntfs.sys
fltmgr.sys
mup.sys

If I keep pressing 'Return' it eventually boots. I've tried doing a repair of windows as it instructs but it just stuck at 'detecting windows installation'.

I've also tried to switch to AHCI mode after installing in IDE using the regedit/MS fix it tool method but I just get boot failure so I don't know what else to do to enable it. Any ideas?

I'd even bought another hard drive (Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 3tb) as I thought it was the RAID setup that was the problem. Wished I'd asked on here first.

Samsung Magician says the drive health is good.

Can someone help me here please? Is the drive faulty? Would be nice to stop swearing profusely at the PC. Thanks!

Dervious · 30 Oct 2013 at 23:28

Seems a bit odd.

First thing I'd try is removing the overclock from your CPU.

Maybe try a different SATA socket.

Azibs · 31 Oct 2013 at 12:03

Thanks, I've tried doing both to no avail. Tried doing a fresh install in AHCI mode again. It gets as far as installing updates but when it reboots, the system either hangs when the Windows logo screen appears or it says Disk Read Error, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot.

Fruitbooter · 31 Oct 2013 at 12:32

Can you not RMA the drive and try a new one just to rule out that its not the drive?

dreigns · 31 Oct 2013 at 17:21

What motherboard are u using I was getting this message when I build my dad a new pc

If its the one in your sig then its the same motherboard as my dads which did the same only it sorted it self out on its own I was using a other brand of ssd i forget which only now sometimes windows reports its not shut down correctly when it has and wants to repair

Azibs · 31 Oct 2013 at 19:06

dreigns said:
What motherboard are u using I was getting this message when I build my dad a new pc

If its the one in your sig then its the same motherboard as my dads which did the same only it sorted it self out on its own I was using a other brand of ssd i forget which only now sometimes windows reports its not shut down correctly when it has and wants to repair

Yes dreigns, it's the one in the sig. That's interesting! Think what I'll do in that case is try the drive in my dad's PC. See if it works in that first before I RMA it. Cheers!