Western Digital Blue hard drive won't come on. When I push the start button, the PC fans run so not a power supply problem? Win10 PC.

Unlike a stacked spinning disc hard drive which will make sounds as it dies, no sounds from a solid state hard drive. Mine was acting a little different lately, most noticeably taking longer to power down, not up. I thought maybe something was running but didn't dig into it yet.

I've had 2 SSD's go bad on me. Both the M.2 type.

the early ones hated being overwritten over an over again.

Yes, they can fail.

The following applies to SSDs which are powered off for long periods, so I don't think it directly addresses your issue. I assume since the SSD in question is mounted in a PC, you don't have it powered off for months at a time. Nevertheless, you may find this helpful to a degree:

https://x.com/lauriewired/status/1840798755102380538

Good link, Para.

Scanning through it shows alternatives, longer lasting media are being developed (quartz crystal tech, that's the ticket ). But yeah, ssd' s fail, not if, when.

So be aware of pc performance changes, mine's been acting odd for a few weeks. Otherwise, the pc has seemed fine so I've been whistling past the graveyard for a while.

Anything made of matter will change over time. When it is a highly engineered item change usually means degradation (taken a look in the mirror lately?) Don't trust magnetic media, whether spinning or static for long periods of time.

That said, it is worth a try to low-level reformat the OP's SSD. This because the corruption may be in the on-disk metadata that will be reinstated by the format. Most, if not all, SSDs have "spare sectors" the will be mapped to replace bad sectors by the firmware on the drive module. Yes, you will lose any data on the drive, but it appears that has already happened.

If the data on the drive is worth five figures to you, a data recovery firm may be able to retrieve some of it. If you choose to go this route, the less you do with the drive the better.

How to format if the unit won't power up?

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
How to format if the unit won't power up?

How do you know it doesn't "power up?" Just because your OS doesn't see it means nothing. If this is your boot drive, get another and reinstall the OS on the new drive. Or better, get a "boot from thumb drive" Linux distribution, and work from there. Some of these distributions are specifically set up for data/disk recovery.

It certainly is possible that the logic on the drive itself has failed and the disk controller in the PC will not see it, but it is far more likely that the OS isn't recognizing the drive because the data on it is corrupt. Taking a look at the drive in your BIOS might give a hint here.

It is also possible that the add-on card the SSD plugs into has worked its way out of its bus socket. Reseating this should be your first step as well as checking any power connectors to the board itself.

A SSD that is frequently written on, like a boot drive hosting swap files and temporary data, will degrade much more quickly if it is nearly out of space. To make a SSD last longer, buy one as large as you can afford and don’t fill it past 50%. This gives more free cells for wear leveling.

If you really care about preserving your data, get a four-bay NAS, put at least three drives in it, use a parity RAID, use btrfs or zfs file systems, and have it data scrub every quarter. Then get a second one, host it at your friend’s house, and rsync your home NAS to the remote one. It sounds more complicated than it is.

Does anything come on the screen? When the hard drive fails, you'll see a boot error message. If you don't, the issue may be the motherboard, RAM, or CPU.

For our experts, as your SSD gets optimized/retrimmed over time, will you notice a loss in available disk space?

architect is correct, you have to determine if the issue is in the drive or the system.

Is it the boot drive?

If you get "power" but no POST (BIOS) then unplug to see if you then get the BIOS screen, it should bark at you to say "no boot drive".

Then I would take the drive out, attach it to a USB cable then plug it into another system (or directly attach).
^^^ This assumes the drive is a SATA SSD not a M2 SSD drive.


If you see data on the drive in the other system then the issue is with the main system (power supply or mainboard).

If not then it is obvious the drive is not good.

Seeing the POST is a critical aspect.

Depending on the tests, I'd get a new drive and reinstall everything then hope to transfer data if can be seen on the drive.

FWIW, WD Blue is the bottom of the line drive so get at least the Black or maybe a Samsung.
Also install the manufacturers Drive utility software too, It will manage the health much better.

At least this would be my thought process if you brought the computer to me for service.
YMMV

Powering on, nothing, blank screen. The pc fans run when I hold the start button down.
Is the noticeably slower power down I was experiencing any clue?

Unplug your drive (all drives if you have more than one) > see if same result.

If the same look at the power supply.

System hd and two backups unplugged, screen blank when pushing on.
Do the running fans and green light on the back of the power supply eliminate that as the problem?

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
System hd and two backups unplugged, screen blank when pushing on.
Do the running fans and green light on the back of the power supply eliminate that as the problem?

Not at all, this only means that enough of the firmware is intact to start up those sub-systems, a very basic level of operation.

However, dysfunction at this very basic level implies that higher level functionality that depends on this low level function may not be impaired after all. IOW, (maybe) if a new system is procured, the drives may be operational in it with data intact.

It also means that a new power supply might suffice to regain full operation. PS's supply power at specific voltages and currents on various power leads, it only takes loss of one of these to prevent system initiation. It could well be that the fans and chassis lights run off a 12 or 15 volt bus, but the 5V bus that powers the motherboard has failed. A new PS is cheaper, in most cases than a new MB, and can probably be returned if it doesn't fix things.

But I am accustomed to building systems from the chassis up, and I wouldn't dream of only having a single system to work with so my way forward probably does not feel particularly useful to the OP.

Thank you, architect. Yes, I am far down the ladder with a singe pc and limited options and very limited skills. A power supply will be my next approach.

It's been a shitty day, the wife and I were swarmed by yellowjackets this afternoon as we dealt with leaves. They got us good.

where are you at besides flown over?
I'd say there are enough forum members with a junk box to loan you some troubleshooting parts. I certainly do, but it might be dumb to ship junk across the country... Model of computer will help diagnose & ID what you could swap (and/or the value in fixing vs replacing)

As has been said previously, if it won't do nuthin', the SSD is pretty far down the list of things that are broke. DO NOT REFORMAT SSD RIGHT NOW.

1. Check monitor connection, if it's HDMI, try a TV (& try the monitor with another source). I've spent more time troubleshooting a monitor that came unplugged than I care to admit. I've also had a video card croak & everything else was fine.
Once you know your screen works, but nothing is being sent to display, you are in the power supply / motherboard / video card (if discrete) realm.
There is a coin-cell battery on the motherboard that keeps time/date. If it's dead or came unseated, you should still see a POST (Power-On Self Test) screen, but dumber things have happened. Beyond that, you're swapping parts.

Thanks, snidera, I'm in the St. Louis area.

Amazon dropped off a new hd this a.m., doesn't power up.

Your monitor comment reminds me another anomaly I've experienced a few times over the last weeks, when I push "on", a Dell splash screen appears at first, black screen, white Dell graphic, a few seconds later, the system boots up.

Sometimes lately, it doesn't boot up. I push "on" again to turn off the splash screen and again turning it on, it powers up.

Yesterday splash screen, turn off, turn on and it's dead, nothing. Not the monitor I'd guess. Not to mention I'd hear the pc booting up. Also I replaced the disk battery.

^^^ If all you tried was a new HD then it would be predictable it would not boot if all devices are unplugged as a test.
Power Supply is my suspicion at this point.
It could be other factors but it is useless to speculate beyond this point without testing the power supply.

Posting from my desktop, PSU!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you..