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Intel releases update to fix SSD bug

By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 18 Aug 2011 at 11:32

Intel has issued a firmware date for its 320 series of solid-state drives that malfunctioned if they lost power unexpectedly.

The initial failure - officially dubbed the Bad Context 13x Error - saw the drives crippled after a power interruption, with the storage devices reporting to the BIOS that capacity was a mere 8MB on a NAND flash memory range that starts at 40GB and runs up to 600GB.

Intel said all 320 series owners should apply the update, even if they haven't experienced the issue in order to prevent it happening in the future.

However, customers who saved information to the drives before the error will be unable to recover data even after the firmware is applied, the company said.

“If you have already experienced a drive failure or encounter this problem before the firmware update was released, please contact your Intel representative or Intel customer support for an SSD replacement,” the company said.

“An alternative option is to use the Intel SSD Toolbox or similar tools to perform a secure erase in order to restore the SSD to an operational state - all data will be erased. After secure erase, update your SSD with the new firmware. The firmware update will not recover user data.”

The update (4PC10362) is available for download from Intel's firmware pages.

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User comments

backup, or lose it

nothing is 100% reliable so if anyone lost data because of this issue and didn't have a backup then I only have a little sympathy for them.
my family, friends and customers think I go on too much about the importance of regular HDD and SSD imaging but this is a prime example of why. also Dropbox should be a useful safeguard.

By mr_chips on 18 Aug 2011

this is the third........

time I have heard of manufacturers of SSDs issuing firmware updates to correct errors which could potentially cost users all their data; As much as SSDs have their advantages these issues have left me more cautious about adopting SSDs , because of these firmware issues I wont be abandoning magnetic hard disks this decade at least ..........

By DeanC on 18 Aug 2011

Losing all your data on any drive should be seen as an occupational hazard if you use a PC - everyone should have a good enough backup to recover from it. Sadly most don't!! (Including the seemingly increasing number of people that think their RAID array is their backup...)

By NickS on 19 Aug 2011

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