My 250 Vertex just died - Help!

[sparkie7]

Ok, my Vertex drive caused my (Mac) system to lock up. Thought nothing of it. I have a Mac Pro with the 250GB Vertex on one drive slot 1. And a back up of this Vertex SSD (Carbon Copy Clone of it) on another HD on another slot.

I rebooted. but didn't realize I was working on my HD back-up version till I looked at my desktop and realize the SSD drive wasn't mounted!

I opened Disk Utility and it did the scan - nothing!

I shutdown the machine. Took out the Vertex and re-seated it. Took out the back up HD. Rebooted the system, and it came up with a blank folder with a question mark on it!

Shutdown and reseated the Vertex in another slot. Reboot and still no luck.

LUCKY I BACKED UP the day before, so very few files lost!. If I didn't have this back up HD, I'd be totally screwed out of about 2 weeks work!

What should I do next? Disk Utility isn't even seeing it so I can't even try to reformat the SSD.

Any suggestions/ideas?

 

[Gen]

The drive probably died? Contact Vertex, or whoever sells those - OCS?

 

[Pressure]

You can always try using HDDERASE to secure erase it back to default.

I am sure OCZ has a forum full of tips in case of problems like these.

 

[maghemi]

You can always try using HDDERASE to secure erase it back to default.

I am sure OCZ has a forum full of tips in case of problems like these.

That wouldn't work though if the drive is not even showing up as being connected to the system?

 

[sparkie7]

You can always try using HDDERASE to secure erase it back to default.

I am sure OCZ has a forum full of tips in case of problems like these.

I posted there already. Seems they want want some jumper leads attached to it to get info. Which I dont have

That wouldn't work though if the drive is not even showing up as being connected to the system?

Yes. Thats the main worry

 

[sparkie7]

Just tried re-seating the Vertex in all four SATA slots using a boot on the Apple CD install and when I go to disc utility there's no sign of the Vertex. Just the Max OS X Install disc.

Now I'm getting worried. What should I do next?

 

[tezro]

Your drive died. Contact the manufacturer???
Don't make things too obvious please.

 

[leighonigar]

Your drive died. Contact the manufacturer???
Don't make things too obvious please.

Depends which country you're in... in the UK the responsibility is with the retailer.

 

[sparkie7]

I'm thinking RMA now. I'm in Australia

 

[Pressure]

That wouldn't work though if the drive is not even showing up as being connected to the system?

It doesn't matter as you have to boot up in DOS mode.

You can even wait to connect the SSD just before you launch HDDERASE. It doesn't have to be recognized by BIOS.

 

[sparkie7]

It doesn't matter as you have to boot up in DOS mode.

You can even wait to connect the SSD just before you launch HDDERASE. It doesn't have to be recognized by BIOS.

do you have links on how to do this? thanks

 

[MacACK]

I have 3 OCZ 250 Vertex drives in a Raid 0. OCZ Support is outstanding - BUT they are having major issues with the firmware. I have experienced drives "dissappearing" on a frequent bases which results in a dead raid. I RMA'd once and have been running a beta firmware - which just failed me.

I am being told that the new Firmware is being completely rewritten to fix the problems I have been experiencing (and you).

I would absolutely contact support so that your problem is documented.

Frustrating since these drives were not cheap and when they do work they fly...

 

[sparkie7]

I have 3 OCZ 250 Vertex drives in a Raid 0. OCZ Support is outstanding - BUT they are having major issues with the firmware. I have experienced drives "dissappearing" on a frequent bases which results in a dead raid. I RMA'd once and have been running a beta firmware - which just failed me.

I am being told that the new Firmware is being completely rewritten to fix the problems I have been experiencing (and you).

I would absolutely contact support so that your problem is documented.

Frustrating since these drives were not cheap and when they do work they fly...

Heck, three 250 Vertex's = sh*tload of $$$. Having them in RAID 0 must have been super fast. But also exponentially increases problems.

I'll try OCZ support and file a ticket

 

[Dreamail]

+1

Hey sparkie7!

Sorry to report but I'm a '+1' here...

Just got 2 Vertex 250GB drives merely a week ago, installed both in a RAID 0.
All was peachy and worked superfast. Photoshop CS 4 launched in 3 seconds flat. Nice! This took like 15-20 seconds before.

Alas, this evening, my Mac Pro suddenly hung. Reboot. (\) 'No' sign.
Rebooting with the SnowLeopard installer disk confirms that one of the two Vertex drives is no longer recognized.
Their Firmware Updater CD says the same thing.

Great...


Also filed a ticket with OCZ. From their forums I also guess that there is not much one can do.
And like sparkie7 I don't have access to a Windows PC. All my 'Windows friends' have laptops and are not willing to uninstall their HDs. Fair enough.

Of the two Vertex drives I bought one came with firmware 1.1 installed, which I updated via their FreeDOS CD to 1.3. System Profiler strangely reported it as 1.30 not 1.3.
The other drive reported as 1.3 (not 1.30) in System Profiler. So I didn't update it.
That's the dead one now. Maybe I should have updated it to 1.30?!?

Ah well...
Brand new cutting edge technology is always full of hassles. That's the price consumer pioneers pay.

I'll keep people posted about the developments.
And I really hope OCZ can get their act together.


In the meantime I recommend to potential OCZ buyers to stay on the sideline re OCZ drives.
Probably best to hold off on any purchase until their firmware troubles are resolved.
Afterall at $700 those drives aren't exactly cheap and one would want them to work longer than 7 days...


I wonder if SnowLeopard made the problem worse as only now reports seem to accumulate.

 

[sparkie7]

Sorry to hear about your experience Dreamail

I have had mine for 6 months before it croaked But then I again I didn't have it in a RAID setup.

Its all a hassle having to sort this out. The jumper should be provided free with the drive for its premium price. But the main thing is that FW updating and trouble-shooting should be able to be done on a Mac. Not a PC default

My understanding is that the CD FWupdate can update the firmware without being destructive. But my main concern is that neither the CD or DiskUtility can detect the drive! I even tried TechTool Pro to see if it could find it. No luck. Unless there is a drive utility that can sniff it out. If we could detect our Vertex's we can at least be in a position to reformat or reset the drive.

Anyone suggest a really good drive utility that might be able to detect drives that have gone under the radar?

 

[Dreamail]

What I'm not quite clear about is what the jumper actually does (not that I have one).
Does it merely force the drive to report some status information for debugging purposes? Or does it reset the drive (including data loss, or without data loss)?
What's the point of that procedure exactly?

And I totally agree that the drive should include one. Even better yet, this should be a dip switch on the drive...

Also I'm not quite sure as to what exactly happens that makes the OCZ drives die. Is it an actual hardware failure of one of the chips (driver or flash memory) in which case it is clear that the drive will never show up in any drive tool anymore. It is dead.
Or is it some kind of internal driver software crash, an endless loop or something in which case a firmware upgrade might solve the issue.
But if not even their own firmware tool sees the drive - then a FW upgrade of course is not going to be possible. But then maybe they have a newer tool internally that can still access the drive.


The irony in my case is that I actually bought the 'Macintosh Edition' of the Vertex drives.
Turns out those aren't really 'Mac Editions' as none of the vital tools are available for Macs. If one needs a Windows PC to do something serious to them it kinda proves their whole 'Mac Edition' to be a bit of a hoax...

We'll see what happens. They promise a 24 hour support response time.

 

[sboerup]

This same casualty happened to me, with my 120GB Vertex. Funny, I performed a clone of my SSD via SuperDuper, then shut down computer for evening. Booted up next morning, nothing.

Then I booted to my recent clone, tried to check out the SSD. Would not even initialize!

I let it sit for 2 weeks before doing an RMA. I thought I'd try it again before sending it off. Plugged it back in, initialized and copied the clone back and worked for another month before it died again.

I just received the replacement from OCZ 2 weeks ago. So far so good, but while my Vertex was dead, I got an Intel instead. Now I have 2 SSDs but the Vertex is for other non-critical information right now. Not sure if I can trust it anymore.

 

[Dreamail]

Not sure if I can trust it anymore.

That's the real issue, isn't it.

At least I know I can trust TimeMachine. That is a huge relief. Its backups so far have proven solid and with minimum restore pain. Apart from the hassle of needing an extra drive and restoring which takes quite some hours for 350GB.

Unfortunately Intel doesn't offer any SSD > 160GB, and even with two I'm not going to be happy with the amount of data I have.
That's why I chose two Vertex 250s.

But also because OCZ's support is highly rated. And that seems to still hold.
I was impressed that they did answer my ticket even on a weekend - within 24 hours as they promised. That's really good - in all the bad luck.
Don't know about Intel's support quality.

I'd still give OCZ the benefit of doubt. It's easy to forget that SSDs still are the forefront of technology and not the norm - so some issues should be considered normal with cutting edge technology like that.

Reportedly OCZ are re-writing the drivers from scratch and version 1.4 should be remarkably better.
I still have to send my bad 250GB Vertex in. But I hope the new one will last me until 1.4 is officially released. Or maybe 1.4.1. ...


On another side note:
I'm currently running on an external FireWire 800 drive. This just shows how super fast the SSD RAID really was. SnowLeopard is crawling at the moment...
Proves the Mac Pros are really fast machines. It's the HDs that hold them back!

 

[MacACK]

Heck, three 250 Vertex's = sh*tload of $$$. Having them in RAID 0 must have been super fast. But also exponentially increases problems.

I'll try OCZ support and file a ticket

It was an indulgence that was absolutely fantastic for the 2-3 months it was functional. I have never experienced a faster system... Although i am not confident I ever will again if OCZ firmware doesnt get to where it needs to be.

It is my understanding that if you are on firmware 1.3 - stay there. The 1.4 upgrade will be available from 1.3... I am unfortunatly on a 1.4 beta so will have to do the jumper / wipe on a windows machine.

OCZ will flash your drives if you send them back - as I said support is excellent - too bad the quality of the product doesnt match yet.

 

[sparkie7]

In a last ditch effort to ressurrect/mount the Vertex I tried TechTool Pro and DiskWarrior. Both could not mount or located the presence of the SSD.

I even tried Data Rescue II, reputed to be the best recovery tool for the Mac bar non. Ran it, and even tried the expert mode > refresh volume list. Came back with zero. The scans couldn't pick up the Vertex either.

Reading the Data Rescue II users guide under section 10.2 (page 53): Why doesn’t my drive or volume show up?

"If Disk Utility can see it, Data Rescue should be able to also; if Disk Utility can’t, then Data Rescue won’t be able to either."

Guess that's a pretty definitive answer

This will have to go back to OCZ to sort out

 

[MacACK]

OCZ has released an updated firmware (1.4x). I have been running for the last 2 weeks and so far so good. They appear to have fixed the issues in this release.

 

[sparkie7]

Thats good to hear but if I can't resurrect my Vertex then I can't even reinstall the new FW

 

[MacACK]

Thats good to hear but if I can't resurrect my Vertex then I can't even reinstall the new FW

Had same issue - and reflashed to 1.10 using a windows PC... then flashed up to 1.41. If you dont have access to a PC then you can RMA the drive to them to flash.