New Windows Update could brick your SSD

leezer3 said:
First point of order on gaming PCs- They're much more likely to be overclocked.

That oddly enough reduces general stability, and I remember plenty of 'stable' PCs having random crashes when Win10 was first introduced until the overclocks were backed off.
Click to expand...
No overclocks at all here.
 
My update history says 660 was installed on 24th July and 878 was installed on 13th August.
Everything appears to be running as it should.

I have a WD SN850X - should I back everything up as a precaution?
 
This happened to me, just now....

Win 11 Pro.

B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2

Samsung 990 Pro With HS

All i was doing was listening to Spotify, the PC just randomly restarted in to BIOS, i exited out of the BIOS, the PC reset back in to BIOS, no boot drive showing, My SSD has an RGB light on it, normally during a from power on initialisation the light on the SSD is flashing, not after the random reboot, its as if the drive had no power, i powered the PC off and luckily when i powered it back on it booted in to Windows no problem, i uninstalled KB5063878 immediately.

I have only been back in Windows for about 15 minutes, so far as i can tell my drive seems fine.

L3wnlja.png
 
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humbug said:
This happened to me, just now....

Win 11 Pro.

B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2

Samsung 990 Pro With HS

All i was doing was listening to Spotify, the PC just randomly restarted in to BIOS, i exited out of the BIOS, the PC reset back in to BIOS, no boot drive showing, My SSD has an RGB light on it, normally during a from power on initialisation the light on the SSD is flashing, not after the random reboot, its as if the drive had no power, i powered the PC off and luckily when i powered it back on it booted in to Windows no problem, i uninstalled KB5063878 immediately.

I have only been back in Windows for about 15 minutes, so far as i can tell my drive seems fine.

L3wnlja.png
Click to expand...
Ran a chkdsk just to be sure too?
 
humbug said:
This happened to me, just now....

Win 11 Pro.

B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2

Samsung 990 Pro With HS

All i was doing was listening to Spotify, the PC just randomly restarted in to BIOS, i exited out of the BIOS, the PC reset back in to BIOS, no boot drive showing, My SSD has an RGB light on it, normally during a from power on initialisation the light on the SSD is flashing, not after the random reboot, its as if the drive had no power, i powered the PC off and luckily when i powered it back on it booted in to Windows no problem, i uninstalled KB5063878 immediately.

I have only been back in Windows for about 15 minutes, so far as i can tell my drive seems fine.

L3wnlja.png
Click to expand...
Wow interesting... another AMD case again.

Look like you found the root of issue triggered Event ID 161 is a "volmgr" (Volume Manager) error in Windows that indicates a failure to create a memory dump file. Volmgr is Volume Manager Driver file managed drive data storage.

windowsreport.com

Event ID 161 Volmgr: What is This Error & How to Fix It?

The event ID 161 Volmgr is logged when a BSOD error occurs on Windows 11. To fix it, update outdated drivers or run an SFC scan.
windowsreport.com windowsreport.com

Event ID 161 probably caused by bugged BIOS or outdated drivers or third party apps you installed.

Make sure you update latest BIOS to version FGh released 12 August 2025.

https://www.driveridentifier.com/ download Driver Identifier to scan your device drivers to find outdated drivers then download and update latest drivers.

Maybe KB5063878 conflicted with third party apps that triggered Event ID 161.

I think you should report on Feedback Hub and submit your diagnostic data, your data probably will help Microsoft engineers finally identify mystery issue caused SSD disappeared with KB5063878 update.
 
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Bit confused by this thread? Is it specific to this vendor and W11? In another thread someone said Samsung doesn't use this vendor's controllers?
 
I recently had a terrible time trying to get my computer to start and I was stuck in a constant BSOD loop. First port of call was the RAM, I even replaced it all but no luck. Just before giving up I thought I'd see if there was any restore points and thankfully there were, so I went through them until I got to one that actually worked. Conclusion was that it must have been a Windows update.

It's happened before that as well, just not as bad. It terrifies me now to do any updates, so I've got them all paused and take regular restore points now. Of course yesterday the computer didn't like the fact that I was now proactively protecting against it, so it decided not to power up even to BIOS instead. Eventually turned out to be the CPU requiring removal and reseating.

To this day I still don't know what I've done to my computer to make it hate me so much.
 
pre said:
Bit confused by this thread? Is it specific to this vendor and W11? In another thread someone said Samsung doesn't use this vendor's controllers?
Click to expand...
It's specific to Windows 11 24H2 August 2025 update (KB5063878), although Microsoft does not recognise it as an issue (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/status-windows-11-24H2).

If you go off of some of the evidence presented in this thread there may be a correlation towards it being more likely to affect AMD systems, rather than specific storage vendors.
 
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AthlonXP1800 said:
Wow interesting... another AMD case again.

Look like you found the root of issue triggered Event ID 161 is a "volmgr" (Volume Manager) error in Windows that indicates a failure to create a memory dump file. Volmgr is Volume Manager Driver file managed drive data storage.

windowsreport.com

Event ID 161 Volmgr: What is This Error & How to Fix It?

The event ID 161 Volmgr is logged when a BSOD error occurs on Windows 11. To fix it, update outdated drivers or run an SFC scan.
windowsreport.com windowsreport.com

Event ID 161 probably caused by bugged BIOS or outdated drivers or third party apps you installed.

Make sure you update latest BIOS to version FGh released 12 August 2025.

https://www.driveridentifier.com/ download Driver Identifier to scan your device drivers to find outdated drivers then download and update latest drivers.

Maybe KB5063878 conflicted with third party apps that triggered Event ID 161.

I think you should report on Feedback Hub and submit your diagnostic data, your data probably will help Microsoft engineers finally identify mystery issue caused SSD disappeared with KB5063878 update.
Click to expand...

Its 5 years old and never put a foot wrong, i find it hard to believe that it only does this now after a Windows patch but the problem isn't that windows patch the problem is AMD, I think i'll not mess about with the WINDOWS registry i think i'll just not have the KB5063878 patch Installed.
 
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Thekwango said:
I’d be concerned about that. A cpu shouldn’t need reseating unless it’s taken a thump strong enough to dislodge it. Assuming of course the pc had been running fine up to that point.
Click to expand...

I would have thought the same thing.

I do have a bibical sized heatsink and unfortuantely the room door opens right up to the computer - not great but there's nowhere else for it to go. I've since made some adjustments to a wooden base the comptuer sits on so that the base takes any hit and not the computer.

My guess is that someone has opened the door too far and it's banged the computer resulting in the heavy heatsink shifting enough to cause an issue. That someone was mostly my wife who came to me saying the computer wasn't working #wouldn'tadmitit #noaccountability
 
AthlonXP1800 said:
Look like you found the root of issue triggered Event ID 161 is a "volmgr" (Volume Manager) error in Windows that indicates a failure to create a memory dump file.
Click to expand...
That's not the root of the issue, it's being caused because the drive isn't being detected any more so obviously it can't write a dump.

It's highly probable they'll be events that lead up to that.
 
Don't take this as gospel, but...
Finally though we may have some answers. A Chinese Facebook PC DIY enthusiast group named PCDIY! appeared to have discovered what the actual root cause of the issue really is. It appears that the real cause of the problem is pre-release versions of engineering firmware that somehow may have been triggered by the Windows 11 updates that led to the problems.

The PCDIY! group admin Rose Lee also claims that the issue was successfully verified by Phison engineers in the labs and this gives credibility to the report. Lee writes (Google-translated to English from Chinese):

PCDIY! testing has revealed that the SSDs crashing and crashing due to the Windows 11 update were using pre-release, pre-final versions of the engineering firmware. Because all SSD manufacturers selling products using PHISON controllers purchase their products from the original manufacturer and ship them in bulk using mass-production tools, the SSDs delivered to consumers are already using the official firmware. The official firmware has been thoroughly tested and verified, and does not exhibit the anomalies often seen with engineering firmware.
Click to expand...

Thus it appears that anyone who purchased an NVMe SSD from a retail store should not have to worry as the final production firmware of drives do not have this issue, which is why Phison or Microsoft did not find any problems during their testing as it is likely only retail-ready products were tested.
Click to expand...
Root cause for why Windows 11 is breaking or corrupting SSDs may have been found - Neowin
 
Personally think it is a long standing issue in Windows but exposed only by certain specific combinations of software and hardware.
 
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