My computer bluescreened during a disk defrag. When I rebooted, BIOS couldn't find a suitable boot drive.

Looks like maybe the OS got wiped along with some other data when it crashed. Maybe?

Short of calling my builder's tech support on monday, I'm not really sure what to do. I don't have OS software.

My computer bluescreened during a disk defrag. When I rebooted, BIOS couldn't find a suitable boot drive.

Looks like maybe the OS got wiped along with some other data when it crashed. Maybe?

Short of calling my builder's tech support on monday, I'm not really sure what to do. I don't have OS software.

Ouch! Good luck to you. I don't know what to say to help. Amanda should know though.

Ouch! Good luck to you. I don't know what to say to help. Amanda should know though.

Amanda is a CCNA; she would send the A+ cabana boys to deal with the end user. :D

Without an OS boot disk or some other computer with which to build one of those, you're gonna have to wait.

If you have another computer available, you could try building a bootable disk (USB stick, CD ROM, whatever) using some of the freely available tools on the net and see if you can stick an NTFS recovery tool on that to try to repair the damaged drive. Chances are the OS will be hosed anyway though. Either way, you'll need to try to get something to provide you access to your drive if you want to recover files from it. Then find a backup spot somewhere, backup what you think you'll need (or everything that you can and pick through it later), reformat the drive and start anew.

This assumes that the drive is still working of course. If the BIOS can't find a suitable drive it may mean that it's decided to stop recognising it, in which case you'll probably need to buy a new drive and start over. There are some accounts of methods which can be used to temporarily resurrect dead drives (leave 'em stand for a while, try different plugs, put 'em in the freezer): if those work, great! Take advantage of the drive working to back everything up, then replace it ASAP.

Thankfully the only things on this drive were the OS and some games. I have a second drive that has all my 'valuable' files on it, but that is unaffected. Unfortunately that drive has no OS.

I've resurrected my old laptop and am researching diagnostic tools. Unfortunately I have to travel for business the next couple days, so I may be down for a while.

Freezer works really well, particularly with that sort of error. I have had a lot of luck with that in the past. It is most likely some kind of physical problem with the drive if that is where it crapped out.

Of note, its a SSD. I thought the whole point of SSDs was that they avoided these kinds of problems.

No, the whole point of SSDs is that they're faster than hard drives. They are specifically known to crap out after a much smaller number of read/write cycles than HDs. (They avoid mechanical error though, which I guess HDDs are more vulnerable to, but only if you abuse them by dropping them from great heights, electrocuting them or otherwise abusing them.) Either way, in theory, the number of read/write cycles before an HDD or SSD actually expires is supposed to be more than enough to outlast the warranty on said device. Sometimes it even extends into the multiple years period.

Yeah I'm still covered under the builder's warranty and expect to get really good support from them- they've been a big help in the past. Too bad this happened on Easter Sunday and nobody was working.

I have no idea if this applies to you or if it'll help you at all, but here goes...

On my desktop, if I try to boot the computer with a usb device plugged in (mouse and kb are exceptions) then my mobo won't find the SSD boot drive. Once I turn off / remove all other usb devices it'll boot up just fine.

Maybe there's a quirk that you just ran into now?

I think the freezer thing is only for non SSD type drives too. Not that this has any bearing on the current conversation....

The more you know:

According to my helpful support tech, Joseph, you should never, ever attempt to defrag a SSD.

:) Yeah. File fragmentation is really only applicable to disks, where there's a physical location that corresponds to your file and you want things to be sequential. If you defrag an SSD you're not improving your access speed any, and you're basically running a read/write cycle over large portions of your drive, which reduces its lifetime considerably.

On my copy of Windows 7, it disables disk defragmentation on the SSD. I take it that wasn't happening on yours? Do you know if you had TRIM enabled?

depending on the vendor support you can always go out and download from microsoft the OS software corresponding to your key type. there should be a windows sticker on your machine that tells what version you are licensed to install. I dont think this helps much if you dont have another PC to do that from however :(

FRENIAL IS A PEDANTIC ROBOT!

I bet there is a Frenial Brain hidden somewhere in Alberta...The Frenial body is a symbiant with white blood. WHITE BLOOD!

Here is a picture of Frenial musing on Solid State Drives.

The Frenial body is a symbiant with white blood.

That's 'symbiont', Pils. Geez.

DAMN...DAMN, DAMN, DAMN.

Fren just choked your chicken Pils. I'm almost embarrased for you, if I wasn't so used to it.

Get a Live CD, then after you boot, fix it?

Fren just choked your chicken Pils. I'm almost embarrased for you, if I wasn't so used to it.

This post has so much potential.

This post has so much potential.

Hush you...There needs be no thought involving choking my chicken.