MSI Raider A18 HX A9WJG-091TR Pro-Actively Destroyed My 8 TB SSDs

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mimarsina158b02db

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If you look at this thread:


You will see that I connected some SSDs to this AMD device, and they were unrecognized at the time, or recognized as 2 MB (megabyte) devices instead of 8 TB (terabyte) devices.

Now connecting these SSDs back to their original systems, I see that they are either unrecognized, or recognized as 2 MB devices.

This AMD laptop seems to have pro-actively destroyed three different SSD makes coming from two brands: Oyen Digital, Sabrent Rocket Q, and Sabrent Rocket Q Plus.

MSI, please tell me there is a way for me to recover these drives into an operational state, if not the data stored on them which I fortunately have replicated elsewhere.

8 TB SSDs are VERY expensive and the total number of drives your buggy BIOS or whatever is to blame destroyed would cost me more than the laptop itself!

Until today it was literally inconceivable to me that a buggy BIOS could pro-actively destroy drives in this manner.

Please note that even diskpart thinks that the drives are 2 MB total capacity in a clean uninitialized state, or won't see them at all.

This is absolutely an MSI issue as ONLY and ALL Oyen Digital, Sabrent Rocket Q, and Sabrent Rocket Q Plus SSDs I plugged in to the hardware are affected by this issue.

The same MSI AMD laptop works fine with WD 8 TB drives.
 
Have you tried to update their firmware?
I have been playing with different gen4 and gen5 SSDs on all gen4 and gen5 slots and had no problems at all (moved around SSDs with OSs on different gens).
 
joao.sousa.domingo158102d7 said:
Have you tried to update their firmware?
I have been playing with different gen4 and gen5 SSDs on all gen4 and gen5 slots and had no problems at all (moved around SSDs with OSs on different gens).
Click to expand...
There's no vendor tools to update firmware.
They did provide a tool that "secure erases" their disks, but these don't work either.
You've got to realize, even BIOS doesn't recognize the disks and/or recognizes them as only 2 MB units.
 
joao.sousa.domingo158102d7 said:
You can read here my update on SSDs and RAID systems between gen4 and gen5 SSDs on a Titan 18 HX AI A2XWJG:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?...-upgrade-csodimm-and-ssds.411564/post-2336775
Click to expand...
I had no issues with the same drives, when I had initially plugged them into the Titan.
Then plugging them into the AMD Raider, not only did the drives fail to show and/or were shown as only 2 MB drives; taking them back to any other system where they previously worked resulted in invisible and/or 2 MB only drives.
So the BIOS of the AMD Raider has somehow managed to "brick" these drives permanently.
This is scandalous and I expect someone from MSI to contact me ASAP.
I've lost more money in hardware costs than what I paid for the Raider itself.
 
mimarsina158b02db said:
There's no vendor tools to update firmware.
They did provide a tool that "secure erases" their disks, but these don't work either.
You've got to realize, even BIOS doesn't recognize the disks and/or recognizes them as only 2 MB units.
Click to expand...

Are all the tools / software Windows based?
Windows is generally terrible when it comes to dealing with corrupted drives.

Try booting into a Xubuntu / ubuntu live OS from USB and see if the drive is detected there. (https://xubuntu.org/download/)

You would boot from the linux OS

open a terminal from the start menu (like cmd in WinOS)

type "sudo fdisk -l" (its a lowercase L)

This will list all the drives connected in that PC.
Assuming the drive shows then you might be able to move to the next step.

Find the one which matches the nvme drive in question, so it might be labelled SDA, SDB, SDC...

If SDA the next command to type is

sudo DD if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda status=progress

And that will show it writing zeros to the drive with a MB/s progress counter, only do 2 min to see if it actually works.

To stop the write zero press Ctrl and C at the same time (CTRL C).

Give it a moment and it will stop.

Now see if you can access the drive in Windows.
 
I actually booted into GParted Live and the results were super discouraging.
The drives are simply invisible, even to Linux. Keep in mind in most places even the BIOS doesn't see the drives.
I did try sudo fdisk -l among others.
What's interesting is that my operational drive was identified as /dev/nvme1n1 instead of /dev/nvme0n1, but any kind of access to /dev/nvme0n1 was simply impossible.

MSI needs to chime in here. Their BIOS caused this problem. They need to stand up, be accountable, and fix the problem.

I was able to resurrect a couple of dead SSDs using this trick (on a non-MSI spare laptop):
- Connect working drive of same brand and model on second slot
- Boot into Windows from first slot
- Hibernate, connect failed drive of same brand on model on second slot
- Windows Disk Management thinks the attached disk is still the one that was removed
(I came upon this trick as I was testing all my drives for access, given that I did not keep a log of SSDs I'd tried to get working on the Raider AMD MSI)
- Clean the drive in diskpart
- Drive is now visible in BIOS and elsewhere even after reboot

Unfortunately, this trick did not resurrect all my drives - I was able to recover 2, but 4 are still down.

I have no indication why the trick fails when it does, but during one such failed resuscitation attempt, the Windows Task Manager had recognized the SSD name properly but was displaying 100% disk usage constantly for that SSD. Furthermore, tools like Disk Management, diskpart from the command line, would not initialize properly (for hours).

So something's definitely up here and MSI really do need to step up here.

They have TWO generations of AMD HX3D laptops in this state - granted the 7945HX3D wasn't available widely, but the 9955HX3D is and it's only a matter of time more people using SSDs with Phison controllers get theirs bricked because of this issue.
 
I'm not sure if the problem is related to the BIOS or something else, but I would recommend contacting MSI before you need to upgrade the key parts.
They will provide some key parts that they've verified internally, then you won't encounter these issues, wasting your time and money.
 
Abel Lopez said:
I'm not sure if the problem is related to the BIOS or something else, but I would recommend contacting MSI before you need to upgrade the key parts.
They will provide some key parts that they've verified internally, then you won't encounter these issues, wasting your time and money.
Click to expand...
I don't know about you, but this isn't my first rodeo - the issue is crystal clear a bug in the MSI AMD BIOS.
There's no need for MSI apologists to post here, only MSI with solutions - failure to do which, there's consumer protections for things like these.
 
mimarsina158b02db said:
I don't know about you, but this isn't my first rodeo - the issue is crystal clear a bug in the MSI AMD BIOS.
There's no need for MSI apologists to post here, only MSI with solutions - failure to do which, there's consumer protections for things like these.
Click to expand...
This is just a forum with users like you sharing knowledge and assisting others.

If you want to communicate with MSI Support directly, go to this link.

MSI Global - The Leading Brand in High-end Gaming & Professional Creation

World-leading gaming laptop brand - MSI, offers unrivaled gaming experience: from thin & light to
www.msi.com www.msi.com

If your exchanges seem not to bring you to a satisfactory outcome, use this other link, with a little more traffic than here.

 
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I already opened a support request with MSI, and there's been no response for weeks - I did this the first time their BIOS did not recognize my SSDs, before having benchmarked the devices, and having later found out that MSI had actively bricked my SSDs.

I'll try Reddit now - thanks.

Edit: Here's the link -
https://www.reddit.com/r/MSILaptops/comments/1kwn3cy
 
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mimarsina158b02db said:
I already opened a support request with MSI, and there's been no response for weeks - I did this the first time their BIOS did not recognize my SSDs, before having benchmarked the devices, and having later found out that MSI had actively bricked my SSDs.

I'll try Reddit now - thanks.

Edit: Here's the link -
https://www.reddit.com/r/MSILaptops/comments/1kwn3cy
Click to expand...
But I believe for you to get a real answer from MSI, you need to create a web ticket directly on the website you registered your product (and started warranty): https://account.msi.com/en/products

That is what I use to communicate directly with them.
 
I just got a response from MSI support and they just sent me a list of "officially supported SSDs" on the Raider, without addressing the fact in any manner whatsoever that the simple act of plugging in Phison 8 TB SSDs into the Raider destroys them.

Extremely disappointed with MSI's lack of accountability here. Any ideas on how we can escalate this further?
 
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I'm afraid that's an easy thing for them to evade.. Between "we only support these" and "who knows how you handled those non-supported SSDs", unless it's a supported or OEM part, they can just deny accountability. Unless more people report the same, I'm afraid they won't take it seriously..
 
Their latest response is "We are very sorry that we cannot provide you with instructions for recovering the device or loss." as predicted.
So a company with ten billion dollars in revenue, "the most trusted name in gaming and eSports. We stand by our principles of breakthroughs in design" is unwilling to clean up the mess it makes, wow!
I have suffered material losses of $4,000 and who's responsible for this loss but MSI? They've definitely achieved a new breakthrough by inventing a world-first technology that bricks SSDs just by virtue of booting up a BIOS.
 
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