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[Reizo Ryuu]

Apparently one of my SSDs failed and windows wouldn't boot, not even the windows install usb; I figured it out by disconnecting them all and reconnecting one by one to get back into windows.
But that's a bit besides what I want to talk about, there were just games on the drive anyway, apparently the SSD has been failing since 1 December with the following report in event viewer:

The device, \Device\Harddisk0\DR0, has a bad block.

It reported this for a day until it went to the next report

The driver has detected that device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 has predicted that it will fail. Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent.

And

Windows Disk Diagnostic detected a S.M.A.R.T. fault on disk Samsung SSD 870 EVO 1TB (volumes H:\). This disk might fail; back up your computer now. All data on the hard disk, including files, documents, pictures, programs, and settings might be lost if your hard disk fails. To determine if the hard disk needs to be repaired or replaced, contact the manufacturer of your computer. If you can't back up (for example, you have no CDs or other backup media), you should shut down your computer and restart when you have backup media available. In the meantime, do not save any critical files to this disk.

That went on for a week until it finally reported this an hour before my pc BSOD'd

A fatal hardware error has occurred. A record describing the condition is contained in the data section of this event.

So if windows is able to detect this, why wouldn't it actually alert with a notification?
I've been sitting with a failing drive for over a week and there's nothing in windows that rings a bell to tell the user? I'm sure I haven't turned anything off regarding this, but maybe I have; it just seems odd to me that all this information is readily available in event viewer, but windows does nothing else with it.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Unfortunately you'll want a SMART reporting utility running if you want to see the reports that Windows logs. SMART reporting actually comes from the BIOS but it's up to the operating system what to do with the data.

But yes, Windows sucks at many things, just add this to the long list.

 

[nkarafo]

Failures like this rarely come with warnings from my experience.

But anyway, SSDs and HDDs fail so always backup your stuff. You should also keep a clone of your system and update it every week or so, this way you won't even have to re-install windows+apps in cases like this.

 

[ReBurn]

Failures like this rarely come with warnings from my experience.

But anyway, SSDs and HDDs fail so always backup your stuff. You should also keep a clone of your system and update it every week or so, this way you won't even have to re-install windows+apps in cases like this.

Same. In my experience it's rare that you get heads up before components die. These days I have my important stuff sync to the cloud so I don't lose it when something eventually dies.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

But anyway, SSDs and HDDs fail so always backup your stuff. You should also keep a clone of your system and update it every week or so, this way you won't even have to re-install windows+apps in cases like this.

Yeah I've already ordered a couple of enclosures and ssd, so I'll clone my boot and another drive that seems to be throwing up errors as well.

 

[BadBurger]

Have you tried chkdsk to see if it can repair it? A bad block means it's a physical issue, but chkdsk can tell the OS to simply ignore that block. It doesn't always work, but it's worth a shot.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Have you tried chkdsk to see if it can repair it? A bad block means it's a physical issue, but chkdsk can tell the OS to simply ignore that block. It doesn't always work, but it's worth a shot.

One of the things I remember, and what should have set off alarm bells initially, is when I checked the board explorer in the bios, it showed that sata as "empty", I didn't think anything of it then, because I just figured it was an empty slot I had left, but it looks like the bios didn't even see the drive anymore.
But I guess it still stopped windows from booting in any way, shape or form, so perhaps it's not completely dead, so I planned on checking it once I get the enclosures.

 

[Futaleufu]

Run Crystal Disk Info and check the "health %". If its shown in red it means the drive is on its way out.

 

[nkarafo]

I have 0% health HDDs sitting in secondary/test PCs that still work fine for years.

I had 100% health HDDs/SSDs that died abruptly with no warning.

HDD health is not an indication a device will die or live for "more than 1000 days". At least in my case it never successfully predicted the fate of the ones that failed. Some HDDs i have still work since the late 90's regardless of health status. Some failed in less than 2 years of use.

It's completely random and most of the time it's something like a mechanical failure or the controller dying, etc. Always have your stuff copied in two different devices at least.