It's my Kingston SUV500 480GB SSD installed inside a USB3.0 casing. Everything is working fine previously. Today, out of a sudden, it decides to kaput. Windows Explorer > This PC shows a phantom drive icon. You can tell straight away that it is not normal.

CrystalDiskInfo this morning.


Windows Disk Management says the partition has turned raw. I fire up TestDisk utility asap to recover my files. Thank god, the files are still listed and can be saved. I thought maybe it's the partition table that has gone wrong. I try to fix the partition table after reading and watching various guides using TestDisk (which I have high success rate with it in the past). Based on the hint, it says my drive is GPT EFI. Dunno why it suggest that when the SSD is only used as a typical external storage. I've tried Intel/PC mode too because that is the most common selection based on all the guides. However, all attempts fail to fix the partition.

TestDisk tested with "Logical" or "Primary", then "write".


After a deep partition search that took hours. Dunno why it shows FAT16 when the SSD was formatted in NTFS:


In Disk Management, I delete the whole volume and create a new partition from scratch. However, it cannot be formatted with a message "Windows cannot format the volume because the volume is offline. Please try to online the volume by assigning a drive letter or path to the volume first." Weird. It is online though. I assign a letter to it but still it cannot be formatted (with the same error message).

I try the SSD on a Linux Ubuntu rig (different PC). It also cannot detect the drive and mount normally.

I do a badblocks check following this guide on Ubuntu. It takes forever. After 5 hours, I decided to cancel the check. It seems it has progressed 30% but the report generated is a whopping 1.7GB file. I believe that contains the bad sector positions (a long list of numbers in that file). Kindly correct me if I'm wrong.

I wipe out the volume and create new partition with GParted. Everything goes smooth here.


Dunno why it says 81.48MB used when there are only 2 files worth 3MB in it (I copy 2 images with the size of 3MB total into it for testing).


Then SSD seems working fine now in Linux. I can copy files into it.


Well mounted and working fine.


Ubuntu Disks built in SMART self-test and info. The reallocated sector count is worrying though (higher count than this morning, 32 to 64):


I plug in the SSD back into my main Win10 rig. The SSD cannot be used just like the initial situation. Windows Disk Management says the drive is not formatted (although it was formatted in GParted just now). Back to square one.


I use the SSD in my Linux system again. Surprisingly, it can be used over there. The files are still inside (the 2 images that I copied earlier). It just won't work in Windows. I don't know what's going on here.

I cannot say the SSD itself is OK because the SMART data shows it is not OK. Is this the sign of a failed SSD?

Other things that I have tried: Swapping a different USB SATA case.

I spent the whole Sunday checking out this issue. I hope someone can assist me. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

This post has been edited by Skylinestar: Feb 28 2021, 10:03 PM

Why does age matter? Approx 2 years old. You can see the hours in the screenshot. It's normally used once a week for my data backup, and also emergency retrieval of files once in a while.

This post has been edited by Skylinestar: Feb 28 2021, 10:11 PM

no issue. i have tried with different hdd inside the case and also try the ssd on different case.
if the case is the issue, it will not work in linux too.

not possible because cannot enter the drive letter. example: chkdsk x: , that x is not possible.

This post has been edited by Skylinestar: Mar 1 2021, 07:56 AM

I dunno if I should buy conventional spinner hdd or ssd for backup storage. My super duper old hdd are still working today. But I have experienced 2 dead Kingston ssd already.

Wow. OMG.
I did a secure erase with the Kingston SSD Manager and partitioned it with Windows Disk Management. Surprisingly it can be partitioned and the drive is now usable.
Thank you masta.

But here comes the worry part: Should I continue to use that SSD? FYI, I use it for my critical data backup of my main PC.

Yes. Now dilemma whether I should buy hdd instead.

speaking of cold storage, does that mean i shouldn't leave my usb thumbdrive unused for months?

This post has been edited by Skylinestar: Mar 3 2021, 10:43 AM

I'm already running such setup for years.
Gparted limits ntfs cluster size to 512, unlike windows default of 4k. No option to change that.

Is this because I write too much on the ssd?

never did that before. my casing has the blinking light when it is writing.

update: march 6th 2021. looks like the condition gets worse.


This post has been edited by Skylinestar: Mar 6 2021, 09:45 AM