Q: After I updated the firmware on my Crucial solid state drives (SSDs), they stopped working and aren't even seen by the computer BIOS/UEFI at startup. What do I do?
A: Drives can have problems after firmware updates--I've seen this happen when using the Windows-based firmware update utility for Crucial drives. The problem doesn't occur until you power off the machine, then the drives disappear.
Here's the process to follow if your SSDs appear to be bricked (non-functional).To resolve this problem, perform the following (note: this takes about an hour):
- Turn on the computer for 20 minutes and leave it sitting at the BIOS screen where the drives can't be found. Power is still going to the SSDs.
- Disconnect the power for 30 seconds--all power must be cut, so literally disconnect the power cable from the computer (don't just turn off the computer as power is still being sent to the machine).
- Reconnect the power cable and turn on the machine for 20 minutes; once again, it will likely sit at the BIOS screen.
- Disconnect the power for 30 seconds (make sure the power cable is disconnected again).
- Reconnect the power--now the drives should work.
If the SSDs still don't work, repeat steps 2 and 3 again. If it doesn't work after three tries, there's likely a problem with the Crucial drive and you should contact Crucial for support. In my experience, the procedure above fixed all of my Crucial SSDs over three different machines.
