J. P. Gilliver (John) said:
It's an SSD.
You should be doing backups.
(Is the juxtaposition of those two statements just coincidental, or are
you saying SSDs are more prone to problems?)
And Windows 7 has the System Image function, which makes restoring
the PC a snap. A combination of your recovery CD (in the same menu
as the making of the System Image), plus your USB hard drive with
the image of the system, is how you can restore the SSD equipped
laptop after a failure.
It's a pity it needs the combination though. If 7 includes this image
function thing, surely they could have included the function to put
something bootable on the same device/medium as the backup, at least
where it is bootable via the BIOS? (And where it isn't it'd be a trivial
waste of space anyway: something that can boot and restore must be so
tiny as to be insignificant these days.)
SSDs are more likely to fail from something like an internal firmware
related issue, than from the flash chips necessarily being bad.
So when your SSD just "winks out" and stops responding, it's
not necessarily an ordinary failure. It could be firmware
related, and the little processor in there isn't working
properly any more. Even hard drives have had this problem
on occasion (data table used to control the disk overflows,
and the processor on the hard drive controller card, can no
longer function correctly).
Paul
[/QUOTE]
I have to mention the recovery CD, because people (like me) who
get a laptop, it doesn't come with an installer DVD. You can use
the installer DVD to do a "bare metal" restore from a System Image.
If you don't have an installer DVD, you burn the recovery CD
(about 200MB of content), and that also allows booting the computer
when the hard drive needs to be changed out. The recovery CD
can't reinstall the OS, but can be used for various emergency
fixit type functions.
You can even download an installer DVD off the net, and use
that in your "time of peril", but that's not a fun way to do it.
(Need a working computer that can burn a DVD, need a broadband
connection, need the digitalriver URL etc.)
I try to make the distinction about SSD failures, so people
don't get all bent out of shape about "wear failure". Lots of
SSDs fail, but they fail "before their time". Because of the
spotty industry track record on firmware design, it pays to
keep doing the backups when you're using an SSD. Some of
the regulars around here, have already had several SSD failures,
which tells you that if you use the computer a lot, you're
going to learn about this stuff the hard way.
Failures like that, also happen with hard drives, and it's one
of the things I scan for, before deciding on what hard drive
to purchase. For example, I was evaluating 500GB, 1TB, and
2TB hard drive models a couple months ago. All ready to drive
off to the store and pick one up. Except the 1TB and 2TB
models available at the store, also happened to have
firmware issues (Seagate). I settled on the 500GB model,
which has less cache RAM, and also a different (older)
controller design. All good so far. You really can't
trust anyone these days, when it comes to product quality.
Paul
