Uh oh, computer problems, BIOS and drive.

[Dave Sherman]

I'm not sure if the message was the impending sign that the SSD on my laptop was dying badly, but here goes.

HP Spectre x360 laptop, 2 years old. Message started popping up saying "your Intel Optane memory is degrading, disable it to avoid data loss". The Intel utility to do that just gets in an endless loop. Googling came up with disabling in BIOS, which I did once before and things were fine, and the message went away. This week the message came back. So, I went into the BIOS settings for the Intel hardware acceleration, and I see it has re-enabled itself. I disabled it again, and now... It won't boot, saying no boot device. If I go into the diagnostics, it shows the large volume is OK, but the smaller volume is saying SMART passes, but Short DST is not available. Presumably, that's what went south. Trouble is, the option to re-enable it in BIOS has disappeared, it just shows the volume information now.

Anyone got any ideas on how to get it back? The larger volume checks out, so I'm sure I could recover all my data, but it's also an NVMe SSD, which I'm sure is buried inside the computer. Don't know if Geek Squad could work some magic on it, but I'm running out of ideas.

 

[Escape08]

Check memory sticks are properly seated.

 

[Touring5]

Can you interrupt the boot process (function key) and boot into a bootable USB stick or drive? If there is no bootable media available you'll get the no operating system message.

 

[spackard]

If the BIOS doesn’t correctly recognize the storage device nothing else will. Have to fix it at that layer.

Putting a bootable OS onto removable media and booting from it is a good workaround to get at your other storage device. Then repair/replace computer.

 

[Rand]

The ssd removal process seems fairly easy.



. remove bottom screws.. use basic plastic prybar to open case.
ssd is right there.

 

[Pew]

Go into the UEFI and make sure the boot is set to UEFI and not legacy. Also, I do not have the following options in my HP Spectre x360, but see if you can switch the boot mode around from AHCI to RST (or vise versa for testing.)

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

Yes, if your BIOS has a hard drive mode of RST (Intel 'Rapid Storage Technology'), I would assume that would need to be enabled in order for Optane (also an Intel technology) to work. I've never used an Optane-enabled system, I'm just going by my general understanding of how it works.

That said, the performance improvements of Intel's Optane disk caching has more or less been bypassed by standard consumer SSDs. if you need to replace anything drive-related and reinstall your OS, ditch whatever drives you have installed, turn off anything Optane/RST related, set the disk controller back to AHCI, install a regular SSD and skip the Intel RST software in Windows. It just makes things a bit more unnecessarily complicated with no benefit.

 

[y_p_w]

Optane is really weird. Some of the larger versions can substitute for a standard SSD form factor. But it's since been discontinued. Not sure if you might be able to just replace the Optane device and recover.

The general idea with a smaller device is that it serves as an accelerator where it's nearly as fast as DRAM but can store data that remains even after being shut down. It need full system and (I think) operating system support for this. But they consider it as a hybrid between memory and long term storage.

3D XPoint - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Intel has something on what to do if it fails.

What to Do if Intel® Optane™ Memory Stops Working While...

Troubleshooting steps to recover the secondary drive after a failure with Intel® Optane™ Memory.

www.intel.com

 

[Dave Sherman]

Thanks all, it's not looking good. I made a Windows 11 installation media, and while the computer boots off that or a Linux Mint flash drive, neither seems to be able to access the drive. Tried mounting the partition manually in Linux and it says it can't find the NTFS signature. Yuck. Found an identical case on HP support where somebody disabled the Optane, don't have an option to re-enable it, and they are in the same boat with no resolution. I guess all that's left is replace it and I see there are adapters to connect NVMe to USB so maybe something could be recovered from it. I have an old backup so all is not lost, but it stinks.

 

[riff1006]

I had the same model laptop and it only lasted 2 years before it started falling apart. I doubt I'll ever buy another HP LT or PC. If I were to buy a Windows LT it would likely be and Dell XPS.

 

[riff1006]

If you can pull that drive and connect it to another PC you might be able to pull the files off it. That's what I usually do when a drive won't boot. If it will power up/spin you can usually get the data.

 

[Dave Sherman]

Back in business, sort of. Picked up a new SSD from Best Buy, and was able to use my old Core2 Duo laptop to make a Windows 11 installation media. Props to HP for making it relatively painless to get the drivers installed, after a short time the laptop is 100% functional again. Don't know if I'll be able to recover anything off the old drive, but other than some recent photos I don't think I lost too much.