hard drive problem

[CoryP]

My friend gave me his computer to try to fix and I messed it up even more lol. He told me it kept on freezing on him all the time. So when I got it and hooked it up, I didn't notice any freezing, but I thought I would just go in and do updates on it, to make sure everything was up to date. After doing updates and it restarted, it just stayed on a black screen and said "verifying dmi pool data - missing operating system" I searched google but didn't find anything on the missing OS part of the verifying dmi pool. I did try clearing the CMOS and setting my BIOS to default. I also took my SSD drive out of my personal computer and put it in my friends computer and that started up fine. Then I put my friends SSD into my personal computer and it came up with the same "missing OS" problem. I did also hook the SSD drive to my HD docking station and I was able to see all the folders on the drive.

Any suggestions on my situation? Thanks for all your help!

 

[Joe C]

First thing I would do, back up all the data data on your friends drive before it gets lost.
Then see if you can fix or repair the boot loader file

 

[pete.i]

First thing I would do is tell your friend that his hard drive is toast and that he wil have to pay for a new one.. Then try to back any data on the old drive but I think it's gone past that and the responsibilty for backing up any data on your friend's drive is squarley on his head anyway. Looks like you will have download the Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft, assuming that that is his OS, and re-install Windows. That is about as far as you can go the rest will be up to him.

 

[CoryP]

I was able to back up all his data from his hard drive. I hooked it up to my HD docking station and was able to pull all of his stuff off. But if the HD is bad, how was i able to do that?

 

[PP Mguire]

Good chance the boot portion of the OS (or part of the OS as a whole) is in some bad NAND flash. Normally this happens because the controller is failing, but in this case it could be some flash failing and there isn't enough provision to maintain the life of the SSD.

 

[tehnokraat]

@CoryP
Honestly, I doubt the problem is the hard drive. I doubt it, because you haven't given any hints so far that it could be a problem with the SSD. Everything points to something else. The reason I think so is that the SSD doesn't break that way, the external manifestations are quite different.
Maybe you can give a bit more ifnfo.
What is the hard drive and how old is it, or rather how much is already stored in it and what is the backup (if you can get it from the SSD information)?
How is it maintained?
When is the new clean OP system installed?
Is it an MBR or GPT, a UEFI or a Legacy boot?
And finally, what kind of computer is it, and did it come with an SSD from the factory, or was it put in there later?

 

[Joe C]

I've seen them Hynix SSD's fail like that after about +- 2 yrs of use

 

[tehnokraat]

Exceptions are always possible. But they are very few and usually users corrupt many more SSDs themselves.

 

[PP Mguire]

It might be just fine, but if it stayed full it's whole life there won't be any overprovision to use and/or TRIM can't operate properly. If the OS happens to be in a bad part it'll cause this. A reinstall of the OS after grabbing data will probably show the drive is fine.