F120 SSD drive not detected sometimes from cold boot

My system specs should be in my profile. I have my Corsair F120 drive set up as my system drive. I have my 3 WD drives set up in RAID5. Sometimes when I turn the machine on, it won't pick up my SSD drive. It will then roll over and try to boot from my DVD drive (which is empty and fail to boot).

 

If I hit the reset button, it detects it and boots fine. Again, it doesn't do this every time from cold boot...just about 1/2 the time.

 

After I get my Asus BIOS screen, it will go to my RAID screen. From there (about 10 seconds ish total from POST), it will try to detect a boot device.

 

The screen will say:

Marvell 88SE91xx Adapter - BIOS Version 1.0.0.1019.

PCIe x1 5.0Gbps

Mode: CPU IDE

 

If it doesn't detect my SSD, from here it will go to the next screen looking for media in my DVD drive. If it does detect it, it will continue to say:

 

Virtual Disk

No Virtual Disk!

Physical Disk

[iD] [Disk Name] [speed]

8 SATA Corsair CSSD-F120GB2 120GB 3Gb/s

 

 

As a side note, I do have this plugged into my Sata3 port. I

don't think that will make a difference...Sata3 is backward compatible,

from my understanding.

 

Also, I believe the Marvell driver is not the most current. But I'm

uncertain how to update this. My MB BIOS is the latest 0303 that

I saw on the Asus website.

 

I'd appreciate any insight in this.

 

-RB

This may sound like a stupid question but was the computer shut down properly before this occurs or was the computer in hibernate/sleep or BSOD before this happens? The Force drive should not be undetected from a cold start if the computer was shut down properly. It might be a controller issue like what RAM GUY said.

My Corsair F120 drive is never detected at cold-boot. I need to press ctrl-alt-del to do a "warm-boot" after every cold-boot.

 

The drive is installed in my new HP Envy 17.

This is a _very_ common thing on the force series. I wish Corsair would get a freaken firmware update out to resolve it already. This is really pathetic that it supposedly passed their QA process and got the stamp of approval from QA with such a major defect.

This is a _very_ common thing on the force series. I wish Corsair would get a freaken firmware update out to resolve it already. This is really pathetic that it supposedly passed their QA process and got the stamp of approval from QA with such a major defect.

 

Actually this is not common at all. I have been monitoring this drive very closely and reading almost every user report regarding the problems revolving around this drive.

 

The Force series has a problem being detected AFTER it has crashed (usually BSOD), or resuming from sleep or hibernate. Cold booting is actually the solution to get the drive to be detected again.

 

Especially if these guys are not experiencing "kernel" power errors or crashes my guess is still that this is a controller issue, I am assuming that RedBaron's WD array is on a separate controller. I also noticed that RedBaron is using IDE emulation, as this drive probably works best in AHCI.

 

RedBaron and byrne, if possible, leave your computer on for a couple days and see how long it lasts. If it crashes while idle during that time frame then you have to wait for the firmware update for Force drive.

RAM GUY,

I'll try that today and post my results here.

 

Synbios, yes, the system shuts down properly and without any issue. I've left my system on continuously for 24+ hours with no issues. When I set up my RAID5 (which is on the ICH10R controller, btw) and installed the Windows driver from my MB disk, it took almost 16 hours to initialize that. I'll try leaving it on all weekend.

 

I also did try switching it to AHCI last night in the MB BIOS. I tried a few times and got a BSOD on bootup every time. This might be crazy, but I was wondering if Windows needed to be installed on the F-120 after the BIOS is set to AHCI. I didn't think that would matter. Any ideas on this?

I switched my F120 drive over to one of the SATA II ports (bypassing the Marvell controller) and the system detects my SSD drive every time. 1. I'm pleased by this. 2. I ran speed tests and the drive seems to be giving the same performance as on the SATA III port (which is expected since SATA II can handle 3Gbps).

 

It does leave me wondering whether this is a firmware issue with the F120, an issue with the Marvell controller, or maybe even the MB itself. At this point, I'd have to put

the Marvell controller on the items of interest list.

I also did try switching it to AHCI last night in the MB BIOS. I tried a few times and got a BSOD on bootup every time. This might be crazy, but I was wondering if Windows needed to be installed on the F-120 after the BIOS is set to AHCI. I didn't think that would matter. Any ideas on this?

Yes certainly, you have to enable AHCI or IDE BEFORE you install Windows. If you change it after Windows is installed, you will get a BSOD. If you do want to change it, you have to edit your registry before you make the change (please check the forum for the sticky on this or do a little bit of research, it is quite simple). I recommend running this drive in AHCI mode especially because of TRIM. You may see a decrease in performance over time if you do not enable AHCI and TRIM.

 

I switched my F120 drive over to one of the SATA II ports (bypassing the Marvell controller) and the system detects my SSD drive every time. 1. I'm pleased by this. 2. I ran speed tests and the drive seems to be giving the same performance as on the SATA III port (which is expected since SATA II can handle 3Gbps).

 

It does leave me wondering whether this is a firmware issue with the F120, an issue with the Marvell controller, or maybe even the MB itself. At this point, I'd have to put

the Marvell controller on the items of interest list.

 

Most likely it is the controller, or some type of incompatibility between the Force drive and Marvell controller. Regardless, I don't see any point in using the Marvell controller, unless you're running out of ports.

[i'm sorry for the poor information that I may share here, but i'm trying...]

 

I have the exact same problem.

Asus G51JX laptop.

 

Not really sure what controller i'm running. Where can I see that?

And how do I change that if it's the Marvell controller?

 

 

The Force series has a problem being detected AFTER it has crashed (usually BSOD), or resuming from sleep or hibernate. Cold booting is actually the solution to get the drive to be detected again.

My drive has never crashed. It was this way out of the box, so that statement is not true :) atleast not in all cases.

My drive has never crashed. It was this way out of the box, so that statement is not true :) atleast not in all cases.

 

I never said this was true in all cases. My response was with regards to sandy901's comment that this is a common occurrence when in fact it is not. If you are having trouble getting the drive detected from a cold start or especially out of the box, you're having other problems.

 

Abacuz, please fully fill out your system specifications in your profile to the best of your ability as requested upon registration. Even if you have a laptop tell us the mobo/chipset/motherboard, etc it makes our lives much easier so we don't have to go hunting down to lookup laptop specs.

 

Are you running IDE or AHCI? Does your laptop have SATAI (1.5 Gbps) or SATAII (3.0 Gbps)?

My Corsair F120 drive is never detected at cold-boot too. I need to press ctrl-alt-del to do a "warm-boot" after every cold-boot.

 

The drive is installed in my new HP Elitebook 8540w. it' a pity....

 

Is there a way out or do I have to buy an other one...

I tested with a GIGABYTE Motherboard. There it doesn't display the symptom. Doesn't play corsair with hp elitebooks?

Thanks a lot. I made a Firmware Update to V2.0 and also a BIOS Update from HP as well as opened a support ticket at HP. I keep you informed.

 

Or is there a newer Firmware than V2.0?

I just wanted to chime in as I have the same issue. The drive is not detected on a cold boot in my laptop. The laptop is a Samsung NP-QX410 with the latest BIOS. The SSD is a Corsair F120 (v2.0 Firmware). I do not have this issue in a different laptop which leads me to believe the issue is not related to the SSD.

Yes I agree and many Notebooks/Laptops are really bad at updating to the latest BIOS kernel which may be needed to run properly with SSD's you might contact them and see if they have any SSD's they suggest or if they have even done any testing with any SSD.

Other wise I would suggest using our Performance Series SSD for best chance of compatibility

 

Yeah that is something I've looked into. The only problem is that the Performance does not perform as well as the Force (from the benchmarks I've seen). I will say that after upgrading to Firmware 2.0 the problem is far less frequent. It boots up normally more times than it does not. I will continue to monitor the performance over a week or two and if it becomes too much of a burden I will shoot for the P128.

I ordered a P128 for the HP Elitebook. I hope, it will work and solves the problems. HP wasn't very helpfull...

 

And thanks for the good support....

I have exactly the same Problem with my new HP ProBook 4520s and the new Corsair F120.

When i Power On the Notebook I got the same error: "Non-System disk or disk error" .

After Reboot with Ctrl+Alt+Del the system works fine and very fast.

HP Support was also not very helpful, now I have a open support call by Corsair.

I will inform you when I get some solutions.

I opened a call by Corsari a few days ago too. I expect, they negotiate better with HP than I did... ;)