Help! My SSD/Apricorn Boot Drive Gone?

[choreo]

A few months ago, I installed a new Samsung 500GB SSD along with an Apricorn Velocity PCI card. Everything has been working fine until yesterday (running most recent version of Mavericks).

Started having problems of various kinds with Mac just freezing a few days ago and a Force Quit could not be accessed, so had to manually shut down with Power button. Since then various wierdness (Sent Mail Messages missing, Alias Icons no longer linking, slow app launches, etc). So today I booted from an external firewire drive and ran Techtool which made it about half way through checking the Volume Structure on my SSD Boot Drive, then stopped and said "Test Failed - Volume Structure Damaged". Now I cannot even get the boot drive to mount at all? Does not show up in Disk Utility, DiskWarrior, Techtool, nowhere.

Now what do I do??? I should have a Time Machine backup, but I can't restore the SSD to where it will mount. Should I just pull the whole SSD drive and PCI card out and trash them (and start over with a Hard Drive)? With this SSD setup, I don't know now if it is the drive or the PCI card that maybe failed?

 

[crjackson2134]

A few months ago, I installed a new Samsung 500GB SSD along with an Apricorn Velocity PCI card. Everything has been working fine until yesterday (running most recent version of Mavericks).

Started having problems of various kinds with Mac just freezing a few days ago and a Force Quit could not be accessed, so had to manually shut down with Power button. Since then various wierdness (Sent Mail Messages missing, Alias Icons no longer linking, slow app launches, etc). So today I booted from an external firewire drive and ran Techtool which made it about half way through checking the Volume Structure on my SSD Boot Drive, then stopped and said "Test Failed - Volume Structure Damaged". Now I cannot even get the boot drive to mount at all? Does not show up in Disk Utility, DiskWarrior, Techtool, nowhere.

Now what do I do??? I should have a Time Machine backup, but I can't restore the SSD to where it will mount. Should I just pull the whole SSD drive and PCI card out and trash them (and start over with a Hard Drive)? With this SSD setup, I don't know now if it is the drive or the PCI card that maybe failed?

Okay let's get some basic information first.

Exactly which Samsung drive do you have, and is it under warranty?
Exactly which Apricorn card do you have?

Did you have TRIM enabled, and if so, how did you enable it?
How much data was on the drive when it failed?

 

[choreo]

Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" SATA-3 SSD
Apricorn Velocity Solo X2

Above were purchased 10/30/13
Looks like drive has a 3 year warranty, but can't wait for a warranty replacement - have to get back up and running tonight (my business computer)

Trim was enabled with Trim Enabler software
Drive had about 20% free space

 

[crjackson2134]

Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" SATA-3 SSD
Apricorn Velocity Solo X2

Above were purchased 10/30/13
Looks like drive has a 3 year warranty, but can't wait for a warranty replacement - have to get back up and running tonight (my business computer)

Trim was enabled with Trim Enabler software
Drive had about 20% free space

Given this is your work machine, you should probably restore your TM backup to a spinner HD if you have one on hand.

I would probably put the SSD in a drive bay. Boot from spinner and try to re-initialize the drive from scratch and see if that's possible.

If that's a no go, then the drive is probably gone. Contact Samsung for a replacemet.

I was hoping that you didn't have active TRIM or that your drive was over filled. If neither of these are the case, then it's likely to need a replacement drive. Do try to repair if first though. However if the drive works well in an SATA bay, then that puts the problem onto the Solo X2 card, but I doubt that's the case.

 

[choreo]

Given this is your work machine, you should probably restore your TM backup to a spinner HD if you have oee on hand.

I would probably put the SSD in a drive bay. Boot from spinner and try to re-initialize the drive frim scratch and see if that's possible.

If that's a no go, then the drive is probably gone. Contact Samsung for a replacemet.

I was hoping that you didn't have active TRIM or that your drive was over filled. If neither of these are the case, then it's likely to need a replacement drive. Do try to repair if first though. However if the drive works well in an SATA bay, then that puts the problem onto the Solo X2 card, but I doubt that's the case.

Thanks for the response - I will post what happens.

 

[choreo]

After more diagnosis (and working on it all night) the most likely culprit is the SSD drive. Another reason I am thinking it is more likely the "drive" is because I kept getting screen freezes for the past couple weeks and Force Quit would not even launch a window - had to power down by holding the power button - never good. I am guessing if the PCI card was the problem then it would just not boot at all (unless it was just incompatible). Of course the freezing leading to a forced power down may have trashed the drive? Chicken or Egg?

I should have a new replacement here tomorrow morning and that will narrow the problem down for sure hopefully.

I need some expert advice on how to restore the new SSD, but I will start a new thread for that.