Problematic Neutron XT turned 2MB

[Neverwinter]

Hi guys, TLDR first:

A Neutron XT 480 GB had been causing OS freezing sometimes and then bricked into a 2 MB drive, not recognized by OS now. Had compatibility issues with HDD.

Long story:
I had been using two HDD drives for a long time until I got my hands on a Neutron XT 480 GB SSD. At first the system with Neutron and a 1 TB WD HDD installed together wouldn't start. It would if I disconnected the 1 TB HDD.
I though it was a SATA controller issue. My motherboard has two controllers at once. It has a SATA 2 and a SATA 3 controllers. But juggling with the drives and controllers didn't help.
I bought a PCI-E SATA 3 controller, tried connecting the disks to three different controlles, but to no avail.
I then tried to disable AHCI in BIOS setup and it worked.

I installed an authentic Windows 10 copy on the SSD and it worked fine for several days. I noticed that once in 4-6 days OS freezed and wouldn't boot after reset unless I cut the power for a while and let the MB condensers wear off. That power cycle always helped and the PC would boot. I thought it was the compatibility issue aftershocks and didn't really care.

Since I had already had issues with SSDs previously I didn't place any crucial data on that Neutron and that was a good move because after another freeze and power cycle it wouldn't boot. Only 1 controller out of 3 (SATA 3 Marvell SE9123 on the MB) now recognizes it and it says the disk has 2 MB capacity. The SSD doesn't show up in any disk utilities though. So I guess those freezes were signs of SSD failure.

I've heard it might be a firmware issue and there are ways of bringing the disk back to life. But everyone is concerned about saving the data so nobody says how exactly one can re-flash the disk. Those can be only rumors though.

wat do?

UPDATE: It shows as a 2 MB drive in Ubuntu and in hdparm.
-i flag returns:

Model=Corsair Neutron XT SSD, FwRev=SAFC01.1, SerialNo=1512819200010259008C
Config={ Fixed }
RawCHS=4/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=4/16/63, CurSects=4032, LBA=yes, LBAsects=4032
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 udma6
AdvancedPM=yes: unknown setting WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-3,4,5,6,7

But I am not familiar with this utility so I dont' know if this info can help or not.

[Toasted]

Can you run SSD toolbox and see if you can update the firmware?
Have you tried secure erasing the SSD?

I would also contact customer service, explain how you got your drive and issue and see if they can replace the drive for you.

[Neverwinter]

Hi, Toasted!
The drive is not visible in the Toolbox. Actually, it is not visible in any disk tool under Windows OS.

I have tried secure erasing in Parted Magic live CD, but it didn't help. I mean, the procedure reported to have been completed successfully, but nothing had actually changed.

I guess I have to try RMA.