Dell SupportAssist and KingSpec mSATA SSD

A while back I purchased a Dell Latitude E7440 laptop which came with a standard HDD fitted.
However it has a WWAN / mSATA slot available so I bought an mSATA drive. I was short of money at
the time and couldn't afford my usual Samsung Evo SSD so bought a Chinese 'KingSpec' SSD.

I cloned the OS and 'system' partitions from the HDD to the SSD and it worked well, for almost a
year now no issues at all, fast and stable. I left a HDD in the laptop as well for data storage.

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I decided to run Dell SupportAssist
on the laptop last night. It ran driver updates check, said it found updates (but didn't download
or install them, it does that after all of the testing is finished).

Then it went on to hardware testing, got to 70% done after a few minutes and was testing the 'HDD'
for various things ("Funneling" was on screen last I think?) when the screen went black with the
message 'Your computer has encountered an error and needs to restart". That's never good..

On restart within about a second the screen shows "Invalid partition table!" followed by a blinking
cursor and nothing further happens. Damn!

I pulled the mSATA SSD and, using an adapter connected it via USB3 to my desktop (A Dell Optiplex
9020) and I can see both the 100MB system partition and C: just fine. I was hoping that perhaps I'd
be prompted to 'fix' a partition table. I also connected the laptops data driver to the desktop in
case that was the issue (I've moved the default Windows user data files to that to save space on
the SSD) but that is fine too.

So I'm assuming there's an issue with the UEFI / 100MB 'system' partition that the test caused?
(Possibly due to perhaps something non-compliant with the cheap SSD..) If so is there any way I can
fix it without going through a complete OS install? (Would that even work if it's a UEFI issue?) It
always takes me ages to get the OS and programmes just how I like them so if the 'system' partition
is fixable that would be awesome.

I know that this may not be strictly a hardware issue (but think it's likely related to the SSD as
SupportAssist has always run fine for me on machines with Samsung SSDs) but I'm hoping someone here
might be able to help - or maybe point me in the right direction to get help.

Thanks for reading.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

~misfit~ wrote:
A while back I purchased a Dell Latitude E7440 laptop which came with a
standard HDD fitted. However it has a WWAN / mSATA slot available so I
bought an mSATA drive. I was short of money at the time and couldn't
afford my usual Samsung Evo SSD so bought a Chinese 'KingSpec' SSD.

I cloned the OS and 'system' partitions from the HDD to the SSD and it
worked well, for almost a year now no issues at all, fast and stable. I
left a HDD in the laptop as well for data storage.

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I
decided to run Dell SupportAssist on the laptop last night. It ran
driver updates check, said it found updates (but didn't download or
install them, it does that after all of the testing is finished).

Then it went on to hardware testing, got to 70% done after a few minutes
and was testing the 'HDD' for various things ("Funneling" was on screen
last I think?) when the screen went black with the message 'Your
computer has encountered an error and needs to restart". That's never
good..

On restart within about a second the screen shows "Invalid partition
table!" followed by a blinking cursor and nothing further happens. Damn!

I pulled the mSATA SSD and, using an adapter connected it via USB3 to my
desktop (A Dell Optiplex 9020) and I can see both the 100MB system
partition and C: just fine. I was hoping that perhaps I'd be prompted to
'fix' a partition table. I also connected the laptops data driver to the
desktop in case that was the issue (I've moved the default Windows user
data files to that to save space on the SSD) but that is fine too.

So I'm assuming there's an issue with the UEFI / 100MB 'system'
partition that the test caused? (Possibly due to perhaps something
non-compliant with the cheap SSD..) If so is there any way I can fix it
without going through a complete OS install? (Would that even work if
it's a UEFI issue?) It always takes me ages to get the OS and programmes
just how I like them so if the 'system' partition is fixable that would
be awesome.

I know that this may not be strictly a hardware issue (but think it's
likely related to the SSD as SupportAssist has always run fine for me on
machines with Samsung SSDs) but I'm hoping someone here might be able to
help - or maybe point me in the right direction to get help.

Thanks for reading.

Do you have a Macrium CD ?

Do you have a Macrium USB stick ?

If so, those have "boot repair".

But your symptoms aren't a boot issue as such, because
of your "dirty/ugly" shutdown.

Macrium has a terminal icon. That might open a Command
Prompt and then you can try

chkdsk /?

chkdsk /F c:

or similar. The installer DVDs also have troubleshooting/repair
function (the button which is the only other thing you can do
besides install). And you can open a Command Prompt from there
and do CHKDSK if you want.

Disk Management isn't completely honest about the layout. There
is a 16MB partition you can't see. It doesn't have a file system
and is likely to be the second boot stage or something.
(MBR first, 16MB second, System reserved third perhaps).
I've not been able (for UEFI installs) to get a description
of what that 16MB partition is for. The 100MB one is ESP
(EFI System Partition. There is a 128MB partition table
(which isn't a partition as such).

You can only CHKDSK C: because it has a drive letter. The
hidden partitions, I sometimes change the partition type
and make them visible, then repair them. But that's a pretty
clumsy way to do it.

If I knew exactly what was wrong (what happened), I'd be able
to hone the suggestions. About all I've got at this point,
is at least the file system was shut down dirty, so it could
use a CHKDSK to tidy up. Then you can try Macrium boot repair
if you want. It's *only* on the emergency boot media. And with
1903, we're getting to the point you almost want to build
emergency boot media using 1903 as the base for it. (Macrium 7
does that, without belaboring the point. With Macrium 7
*do not* leave a multitude of Windows OS drives in the
machine, because the clever software will build a WinPE
from the wrong OS!)

I trust you have some sort of backups at this point. If not,
make a backup first, so you don't lose anything. Macrium has
a "non-smart" backup option, in case the file system is damaged.
One would hope this is similar to "dd" but there's no proof of
that... yet.

Paul

~misfit~ wrote:

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I
decided to run Dell SupportAssist on the laptop last night.

Apparently SupportAssist has some disk drive test function.
Sometimes this is a call to the "Long" or "Short" SMART disk
test, rather than being a Dell-written test. Seagate does that
sort of thing too. You would want a drive product which has
a working SMART for that kind of test. And I don't know if
SSD drives have "long" and "short", or whether it makes
sense to test an SSD that way.

https://www.dell.com/community/Suppo...s/td-p/5167891

That program appears to be a "WonderProgram", as in
"I wonder why they released that". It seems to be about
as miserable as an AV program, in terms of removal.

Paul

On 23/06/2019 2:46 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
A while back I purchased a Dell Latitude E7440 laptop which came with a standard HDD fitted.
However it has a WWAN / mSATA slot available so I bought an mSATA drive. I was short of money at
the time and couldn't afford my usual Samsung Evo SSD so bought a Chinese 'KingSpec' SSD.

I cloned the OS and 'system' partitions from the HDD to the SSD and it worked well, for almost a
year now no issues at all, fast and stable. I left a HDD in the laptop as well for data storage.

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I decided to run Dell
SupportAssist on the laptop last night. It ran driver updates check, said it found updates (but
didn't download or install them, it does that after all of the testing is finished).

Then it went on to hardware testing, got to 70% done after a few minutes and was testing the
'HDD' for various things ("Funneling" was on screen last I think?) when the screen went black
with the message 'Your computer has encountered an error and needs to restart". That's never good..

On restart within about a second the screen shows "Invalid partition table!" followed by a
blinking cursor and nothing further happens. Damn!

I pulled the mSATA SSD and, using an adapter connected it via USB3 to my desktop (A Dell Optiplex
9020) and I can see both the 100MB system partition and C: just fine. I was hoping that perhaps
I'd be prompted to 'fix' a partition table. I also connected the laptops data driver to the
desktop in case that was the issue (I've moved the default Windows user data files to that to
save space on the SSD) but that is fine too.

So I'm assuming there's an issue with the UEFI / 100MB 'system' partition that the test caused?
(Possibly due to perhaps something non-compliant with the cheap SSD..) If so is there any way I
can fix it without going through a complete OS install? (Would that even work if it's a UEFI
issue?) It always takes me ages to get the OS and programmes just how I like them so if the
'system' partition is fixable that would be awesome.

I know that this may not be strictly a hardware issue (but think it's likely related to the SSD
as SupportAssist has always run fine for me on machines with Samsung SSDs) but I'm hoping someone
here might be able to help - or maybe point me in the right direction to get help.

Thanks for reading.

Do you have a Macrium CD ?

Do you have a Macrium USB stick ?

If so, those have "boot repair".

But your symptoms aren't a boot issue as such, because
of your "dirty/ugly" shutdown.

Macrium has a terminal icon. That might open a Command
Prompt and then you can try

Â*Â*Â* chkdsk /?

Â*Â*Â* chkdsk /F c:

or similar. The installer DVDs also have troubleshooting/repair
function (the button which is the only other thing you can do
besides install). And you can open a Command Prompt from there
and do CHKDSK if you want.

Disk Management isn't completely honest about the layout. There
is a 16MB partition you can't see. It doesn't have a file system
and is likely to be the second boot stage or something.
(MBR first, 16MB second, System reserved third perhaps).
I've not been able (for UEFI installs) to get a description
of what that 16MB partition is for. The 100MB one is ESP
(EFI System Partition. There is a 128MB partition table
(which isn't a partition as such).

You can only CHKDSK C: because it has a drive letter. The
hidden partitions, I sometimes change the partition type
and make them visible, then repair them. But that's a pretty
clumsy way to do it.

If I knew exactly what was wrong (what happened), I'd be able
to hone the suggestions. About all I've got at this point,
is at least the file system was shut down dirty, so it could
use a CHKDSK to tidy up. Then you can try Macrium boot repair
if you want. It's *only* on the emergency boot media. And with
1903, we're getting to the point you almost want to build
emergency boot media using 1903 as the base for it. (Macrium 7
does that, without belaboring the point. With Macrium 7
*do not* leave a multitude of Windows OS drives in the
machine, because the clever software will build a WinPE
from the wrong OS!)

I trust you have some sort of backups at this point. If not,
make a backup first, so you don't lose anything. Macrium has
a "non-smart" backup option, in case the file system is damaged.
One would hope this is similar to "dd" but there's no proof of
that... yet.

Â*Â* Paul

Thanks for the input Paul. I don't have Macrium media but have it installed on my newer machines
(and on the laptop - that's how I cloned the HDD to the SSD). I'll make a rescue USB on the desktop
later (the laptop doesn't have an optical drive and my old USB optical died a while back) and try
that but from what you've said I'm not sure how much to expect from it.

That said anything that works would be a bonus at this stage. I've not done command prompt stuff
for years now (decades even) and have forgotten more than I knew already g but will try it out.
UEFI is anathema to me, I know nothing about it and understand even less. I've never seen the logic
in tying a system BIOS / OS to a HDD, that's just another point of failure.

When I try to boot the laptop there was a very brief message on screen before the "Invalid
partition table!" thing so maybe the BIOS can rebuild the UEFI partition if I can get into it (and
if that's what failed)?

Anyway I need to go out for a while now so will tackle it later. I'm annoyed that I don't even have
the 320GB HDD that I cloned onto the SSD anymore. I normally keep them but as it had worked fine
for a year I repurposed it as external storage in a USB enclosure.

I don't have any backups of C drive as it's not my daily driver (and I don't have Acronis anymore -
I might have to look deeper into Macrium, I've only used it to clone a disk so far). My data is on
the 2TB HDD in the laptop and I'll pull that before running any repair attempt.

Thanks again, to be honest I'm quite out of touch with current PC tech. I no longer class myself as
a 'power user'. I haven't built a system for ages now, instead I buy ex-lease Dell corporate stuff
for myself as it's cheaper than building my own machines and they've proven to be very reliable in
the past.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

On 23/06/2019 3:07 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I decided to run Dell
SupportAssist on the laptop last night.

Apparently SupportAssist has some disk drive test function.
Sometimes this is a call to the "Long" or "Short" SMART disk
test, rather than being a Dell-written test. Seagate does that
sort of thing too. You would want a drive product which has
a working SMART for that kind of test. And I don't know if
SSD drives have "long" and "short", or whether it makes
sense to test an SSD that way.

My desktop Samsung SSD supports self-testing, short and extended. However as I said the laptop has
a budget Chinese 'KingSpec' SSD so if Dell SupportAssist tried to use that and it was buggy then
that could explain the issue.

https://www.dell.com/community/Suppo...s/td-p/5167891


That program appears to be a "WonderProgram", as in
"I wonder why they released that". It seems to be about
as miserable as an AV program, in terms of removal.

Thanks for the link and info. I was mainly using it for the driver update feature as it's faster
than checking driver versions and comparing them to whatever Dell have put up on their website
since I installed the OS. I've learned my lesson as that can be done without letting it run the
hardware test, I just didn't see the harm. In fact the laptop was running fine, I used to know
better than to update when there was no issue to fix! I must be getting senile.

Cheers.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

~misfit~ wrote:
On 23/06/2019 2:46 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
A while back I purchased a Dell Latitude E7440 laptop which came with
a standard HDD fitted. However it has a WWAN / mSATA slot available
so I bought an mSATA drive. I was short of money at the time and
couldn't afford my usual Samsung Evo SSD so bought a Chinese
'KingSpec' SSD.

I cloned the OS and 'system' partitions from the HDD to the SSD and
it worked well, for almost a year now no issues at all, fast and
stable. I left a HDD in the laptop as well for data storage.

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I
decided to run Dell SupportAssist on the laptop last night. It ran
driver updates check, said it found updates (but didn't download or
install them, it does that after all of the testing is finished).

Then it went on to hardware testing, got to 70% done after a few
minutes and was testing the 'HDD' for various things ("Funneling" was
on screen last I think?) when the screen went black with the message
'Your computer has encountered an error and needs to restart". That's
never good..

On restart within about a second the screen shows "Invalid partition
table!" followed by a blinking cursor and nothing further happens. Damn!

I pulled the mSATA SSD and, using an adapter connected it via USB3 to
my desktop (A Dell Optiplex 9020) and I can see both the 100MB system
partition and C: just fine. I was hoping that perhaps I'd be prompted
to 'fix' a partition table. I also connected the laptops data driver
to the desktop in case that was the issue (I've moved the default
Windows user data files to that to save space on the SSD) but that is
fine too.

So I'm assuming there's an issue with the UEFI / 100MB 'system'
partition that the test caused? (Possibly due to perhaps something
non-compliant with the cheap SSD..) If so is there any way I can fix
it without going through a complete OS install? (Would that even work
if it's a UEFI issue?) It always takes me ages to get the OS and
programmes just how I like them so if the 'system' partition is
fixable that would be awesome.

I know that this may not be strictly a hardware issue (but think it's
likely related to the SSD as SupportAssist has always run fine for me
on machines with Samsung SSDs) but I'm hoping someone here might be
able to help - or maybe point me in the right direction to get help.

Thanks for reading.

Do you have a Macrium CD ?

Do you have a Macrium USB stick ?

If so, those have "boot repair".

But your symptoms aren't a boot issue as such, because
of your "dirty/ugly" shutdown.

Macrium has a terminal icon. That might open a Command
Prompt and then you can try

chkdsk /?

chkdsk /F c:

or similar. The installer DVDs also have troubleshooting/repair
function (the button which is the only other thing you can do
besides install). And you can open a Command Prompt from there
and do CHKDSK if you want.

Disk Management isn't completely honest about the layout. There
is a 16MB partition you can't see. It doesn't have a file system
and is likely to be the second boot stage or something.
(MBR first, 16MB second, System reserved third perhaps).
I've not been able (for UEFI installs) to get a description
of what that 16MB partition is for. The 100MB one is ESP
(EFI System Partition. There is a 128MB partition table
(which isn't a partition as such).

You can only CHKDSK C: because it has a drive letter. The
hidden partitions, I sometimes change the partition type
and make them visible, then repair them. But that's a pretty
clumsy way to do it.

If I knew exactly what was wrong (what happened), I'd be able
to hone the suggestions. About all I've got at this point,
is at least the file system was shut down dirty, so it could
use a CHKDSK to tidy up. Then you can try Macrium boot repair
if you want. It's *only* on the emergency boot media. And with
1903, we're getting to the point you almost want to build
emergency boot media using 1903 as the base for it. (Macrium 7
does that, without belaboring the point. With Macrium 7
*do not* leave a multitude of Windows OS drives in the
machine, because the clever software will build a WinPE
from the wrong OS!)

I trust you have some sort of backups at this point. If not,
make a backup first, so you don't lose anything. Macrium has
a "non-smart" backup option, in case the file system is damaged.
One would hope this is similar to "dd" but there's no proof of
that... yet.

Paul

Thanks for the input Paul. I don't have Macrium media but have it
installed on my newer machines (and on the laptop - that's how I cloned
the HDD to the SSD). I'll make a rescue USB on the desktop later (the
laptop doesn't have an optical drive and my old USB optical died a while
back) and try that but from what you've said I'm not sure how much to
expect from it.

That said anything that works would be a bonus at this stage. I've not
done command prompt stuff for years now (decades even) and have
forgotten more than I knew already g but will try it out. UEFI is
anathema to me, I know nothing about it and understand even less. I've
never seen the logic in tying a system BIOS / OS to a HDD, that's just
another point of failure.

When I try to boot the laptop there was a very brief message on screen
before the "Invalid partition table!" thing so maybe the BIOS can
rebuild the UEFI partition if I can get into it (and if that's what
failed)?

Anyway I need to go out for a while now so will tackle it later. I'm
annoyed that I don't even have the 320GB HDD that I cloned onto the SSD
anymore. I normally keep them but as it had worked fine for a year I
repurposed it as external storage in a USB enclosure.

I don't have any backups of C drive as it's not my daily driver (and I
don't have Acronis anymore - I might have to look deeper into Macrium,
I've only used it to clone a disk so far). My data is on the 2TB HDD in
the laptop and I'll pull that before running any repair attempt.

Thanks again, to be honest I'm quite out of touch with current PC tech.
I no longer class myself as a 'power user'. I haven't built a system for
ages now, instead I buy ex-lease Dell corporate stuff for myself as it's
cheaper than building my own machines and they've proven to be very
reliable in the past.

OK, if the partition table is gone, then whatever WinPE media you
can boot (Macrium uses WinPE, a Windows installer DVD uses WinPE),
it's not going to be able to see anything on that disk.

If you can get to Command Prompt

diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 1
detail partition
select partition 2
detail partition
...
exit

That's an example of getting partition info, but
assumes there is a partition table present. If the partition
table is gone, many of those steps will fail.

The program TestDisk can scan a disk. The "Quick Search" and
"Deeper Search", hardly ever seem to get the computed partition
table "just right". And I've used a Hex Editor (like HxD) to
scan manually to understand why. And I've seen multiple (what
look like) NTFS partition sectors. When I see that, it makes
it easier to understand how the scan is stumbling on materials
that would confuse it.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

The odds of that actually straightening out a disk (making
a partition table good enough to "write" to disk), in
2019, are pretty poor. I think I had it do a legacy disk
years ago (a Win2K install that got wiped out by a
Windows install disc). I use the program more for "listing files"
in hidden partitions, than for anything else.

Still, that's about all I know of for free, for that
kind of recovery.

TestDisk is cross platform. It's available as a Linux package
on Linux LiveCDs. It's available as a portable ZIP for Windows.

Paul

On 6/22/2019 9:58 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:
A while back I purchased a Dell Latitude E7440 laptop which came with a
standard HDD fitted. However it has a WWAN / mSATA slot available so I
bought an mSATA drive. I was short of money at the time and couldn't afford
my usual Samsung Evo SSD so bought a Chinese 'KingSpec' SSD.

I cloned the OS and 'system' partitions from the HDD to the SSD and it
worked well, for almost a year now no issues at all, fast and stable. I
left a HDD in the laptop as well for data storage.

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I decided
to run Dell SupportAssist on the laptop last night. It ran driver updates
check, said it found updates (but didn't download or install them, it does
that after all of the testing is finished).

Then it went on to hardware testing, got to 70% done after a few minutes
and was testing the 'HDD' for various things ("Funneling" was on screen
last I think?) when the screen went black with the message 'Your computer
has encountered an error and needs to restart". That's never good..

On restart within about a second the screen shows "Invalid partition
table!" followed by a blinking cursor and nothing further happens. Damn!

I pulled the mSATA SSD and, using an adapter connected it via USB3 to my
desktop (A Dell Optiplex 9020) and I can see both the 100MB system
partition and C: just fine. I was hoping that perhaps I'd be prompted to
'fix' a partition table. I also connected the laptops data driver to the
desktop in case that was the issue (I've moved the default Windows user
data files to that to save space on the SSD) but that is fine too.

So I'm assuming there's an issue with the UEFI / 100MB 'system' partition
that the test caused? (Possibly due to perhaps something non-compliant with
the cheap SSD..) If so is there any way I can fix it without going through
a complete OS install? (Would that even work if it's a UEFI issue?) It
always takes me ages to get the OS and programmes just how I like them so
if the 'system' partition is fixable that would be awesome.

I know that this may not be strictly a hardware issue (but think it's
likely related to the SSD as SupportAssist has always run fine for me on
machines with Samsung SSDs) but I'm hoping someone here might be able to
help - or maybe point me in the right direction to get help.

Thanks for reading.

Given that them problem came up while you were running a Dell diagnostic
program, my first suspicion would have been that it somehow confused the
now-data HDD as being the "proper" boot device and then diddled the system
settings as it saw appropriate. If you haven't gone too far with any
changes since you posted it might be instructive to simply remove the HDD
and then try booting with just the mSATA in place, pausing at the BIOS
settings along the way to make sure that it is seen as the one-and-only
boot device. Should only take a few minutes to give it a try.

On 24/06/2019 6:23 AM, John McGaw wrote:
On 6/22/2019 9:58 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:
A while back I purchased a Dell Latitude E7440 laptop which came with a standard HDD fitted.
However it has a WWAN / mSATA slot available so I bought an mSATA drive. I was short of money at
the time and couldn't afford my usual Samsung Evo SSD so bought a Chinese 'KingSpec' SSD.

I cloned the OS and 'system' partitions from the HDD to the SSD and it worked well, for almost a
year now no issues at all, fast and stable. I left a HDD in the laptop as well for data storage.

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I decided to run Dell
SupportAssist on the laptop last night. It ran driver updates check, said it found updates (but
didn't download or install them, it does that after all of the testing is finished).

Then it went on to hardware testing, got to 70% done after a few minutes and was testing the
'HDD' for various things ("Funneling" was on screen last I think?) when the screen went black
with the message 'Your computer has encountered an error and needs to restart". That's never good..

On restart within about a second the screen shows "Invalid partition table!" followed by a
blinking cursor and nothing further happens. Damn!

I pulled the mSATA SSD and, using an adapter connected it via USB3 to my desktop (A Dell Optiplex
9020) and I can see both the 100MB system partition and C: just fine. I was hoping that perhaps
I'd be prompted to 'fix' a partition table. I also connected the laptops data driver to the
desktop in case that was the issue (I've moved the default Windows user data files to that to
save space on the SSD) but that is fine too.

So I'm assuming there's an issue with the UEFI / 100MB 'system' partition that the test caused?
(Possibly due to perhaps something non-compliant with the cheap SSD..) If so is there any way I
can fix it without going through a complete OS install? (Would that even work if it's a UEFI
issue?) It always takes me ages to get the OS and programmes just how I like them so if the
'system' partition is fixable that would be awesome.

I know that this may not be strictly a hardware issue (but think it's likely related to the SSD
as SupportAssist has always run fine for me on machines with Samsung SSDs) but I'm hoping someone
here might be able to help - or maybe point me in the right direction to get help.

Thanks for reading.

Given that them problem came up while you were running a Dell diagnostic program, my first
suspicion would have been that it somehow confused the now-data HDD as being the "proper" boot
device and then diddled the system settings as it saw appropriate. If you haven't gone too far with
any changes since you posted it might be instructive to simply remove the HDD and then try booting
with just the mSATA in place, pausing at the BIOS settings along the way to make sure that it is
seen as the one-and-only boot device. Should only take a few minutes to give it a try.

You beauty! It's up and running and seems fine now.

I guess my life-long run of bad luck has given me a tendency to think the worst, especially as the
diagnostics was running on the SSD when it crashed. A simple change in BIOS fixed it - I feel so
foolish (and grateful).

I've already ordered a 250GB SSD to replace this 120GB KingSpec SSD (and it's been shipped so too
late to cancel) but that's likely a wise move anyway. I really don't want to have to re-install W10
then spend ages getting it just how I like it if I can help it. I still think the crash was to do
with the SSD so...

Thanks again John. It's been a while since the easy answer was the right answer for me.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

On 23/06/2019 10:34 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
On 23/06/2019 2:46 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
A while back I purchased a Dell Latitude E7440 laptop which came with a standard HDD fitted.
However it has a WWAN / mSATA slot available so I bought an mSATA drive. I was short of money
at the time and couldn't afford my usual Samsung Evo SSD so bought a Chinese 'KingSpec' SSD.

I cloned the OS and 'system' partitions from the HDD to the SSD and it worked well, for almost
a year now no issues at all, fast and stable. I left a HDD in the laptop as well for data storage.

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I decided to run Dell
SupportAssist on the laptop last night. It ran driver updates check, said it found updates (but
didn't download or install them, it does that after all of the testing is finished).

Then it went on to hardware testing, got to 70% done after a few minutes and was testing the
'HDD' for various things ("Funneling" was on screen last I think?) when the screen went black
with the message 'Your computer has encountered an error and needs to restart". That's never
good..

On restart within about a second the screen shows "Invalid partition table!" followed by a
blinking cursor and nothing further happens. Damn!

I pulled the mSATA SSD and, using an adapter connected it via USB3 to my desktop (A Dell
Optiplex 9020) and I can see both the 100MB system partition and C: just fine. I was hoping
that perhaps I'd be prompted to 'fix' a partition table. I also connected the laptops data
driver to the desktop in case that was the issue (I've moved the default Windows user data
files to that to save space on the SSD) but that is fine too.

So I'm assuming there's an issue with the UEFI / 100MB 'system' partition that the test caused?
(Possibly due to perhaps something non-compliant with the cheap SSD..) If so is there any way I
can fix it without going through a complete OS install? (Would that even work if it's a UEFI
issue?) It always takes me ages to get the OS and programmes just how I like them so if the
'system' partition is fixable that would be awesome.

I know that this may not be strictly a hardware issue (but think it's likely related to the SSD
as SupportAssist has always run fine for me on machines with Samsung SSDs) but I'm hoping
someone here might be able to help - or maybe point me in the right direction to get help.

Thanks for reading.

Do you have a Macrium CD ?

Do you have a Macrium USB stick ?

If so, those have "boot repair".

But your symptoms aren't a boot issue as such, because
of your "dirty/ugly" shutdown.

Macrium has a terminal icon. That might open a Command
Prompt and then you can try

Â*Â*Â*Â* chkdsk /?

Â*Â*Â*Â* chkdsk /F c:

or similar. The installer DVDs also have troubleshooting/repair
function (the button which is the only other thing you can do
besides install). And you can open a Command Prompt from there
and do CHKDSK if you want.

Disk Management isn't completely honest about the layout. There
is a 16MB partition you can't see. It doesn't have a file system
and is likely to be the second boot stage or something.
(MBR first, 16MB second, System reserved third perhaps).
I've not been able (for UEFI installs) to get a description
of what that 16MB partition is for. The 100MB one is ESP
(EFI System Partition. There is a 128MB partition table
(which isn't a partition as such).

You can only CHKDSK C: because it has a drive letter. The
hidden partitions, I sometimes change the partition type
and make them visible, then repair them. But that's a pretty
clumsy way to do it.

If I knew exactly what was wrong (what happened), I'd be able
to hone the suggestions. About all I've got at this point,
is at least the file system was shut down dirty, so it could
use a CHKDSK to tidy up. Then you can try Macrium boot repair
if you want. It's *only* on the emergency boot media. And with
1903, we're getting to the point you almost want to build
emergency boot media using 1903 as the base for it. (Macrium 7
does that, without belaboring the point. With Macrium 7
*do not* leave a multitude of Windows OS drives in the
machine, because the clever software will build a WinPE
from the wrong OS!)

I trust you have some sort of backups at this point. If not,
make a backup first, so you don't lose anything. Macrium has
a "non-smart" backup option, in case the file system is damaged.
One would hope this is similar to "dd" but there's no proof of
that... yet.

Â*Â*Â* Paul

Thanks for the input Paul. I don't have Macrium media but have it installed on my newer machines
(and on the laptop - that's how I cloned the HDD to the SSD). I'll make a rescue USB on the
desktop later (the laptop doesn't have an optical drive and my old USB optical died a while back)
and try that but from what you've said I'm not sure how much to expect from it.

That said anything that works would be a bonus at this stage. I've not done command prompt stuff
for years now (decades even) and have forgotten more than I knew already g but will try it out.
UEFI is anathema to me, I know nothing about it and understand even less. I've never seen the
logic in tying a system BIOS / OS to a HDD, that's just another point of failure.

When I try to boot the laptop there was a very brief message on screen before the "Invalid
partition table!" thing so maybe the BIOS can rebuild the UEFI partition if I can get into it
(and if that's what failed)?

Anyway I need to go out for a while now so will tackle it later. I'm annoyed that I don't even
have the 320GB HDD that I cloned onto the SSD anymore. I normally keep them but as it had worked
fine for a year I repurposed it as external storage in a USB enclosure.

I don't have any backups of C drive as it's not my daily driver (and I don't have Acronis anymore
- I might have to look deeper into Macrium, I've only used it to clone a disk so far). My data is
on the 2TB HDD in the laptop and I'll pull that before running any repair attempt.

Thanks again, to be honest I'm quite out of touch with current PC tech. I no longer class myself
as a 'power user'. I haven't built a system for ages now, instead I buy ex-lease Dell corporate
stuff for myself as it's cheaper than building my own machines and they've proven to be very
reliable in the past.

OK, if the partition table is gone, then whatever WinPE media you
can boot (Macrium uses WinPE, a Windows installer DVD uses WinPE),
it's not going to be able to see anything on that disk.

If you can get to Command Prompt

Â*Â* diskpart
Â*Â* list disk
Â*Â* select disk 1
Â*Â* list partition
Â*Â* select partition 1
Â*Â* detail partition
Â*Â* select partition 2
Â*Â* detail partition
Â*Â* ...
Â*Â* exit

That's an example of getting partition info, but
assumes there is a partition table present. If the partition
table is gone, many of those steps will fail.

The program TestDisk can scan a disk. The "Quick Search" and
"Deeper Search", hardly ever seem to get the computed partition
table "just right". And I've used a Hex Editor (like HxD) to
scan manually to understand why. And I've seen multiple (what
look like) NTFS partition sectors. When I see that, it makes
it easier to understand how the scan is stumbling on materials
that would confuse it.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

The odds of that actually straightening out a disk (making
a partition table good enough to "write" to disk), in
2019, are pretty poor. I think I had it do a legacy disk
years ago (a Win2K install that got wiped out by a
Windows install disc). I use the program more for "listing files"
in hidden partitions, than for anything else.

Still, that's about all I know of for free, for that
kind of recovery.

TestDisk is cross platform. It's available as a Linux package
on Linux LiveCDs. It's available as a portable ZIP for Windows.

Â*Â* Paul

I've replied to John McGaw, his suggestion to check the boot priority was the fix I needed. Once
upon a time I'd have checked that myself first but when I swapped from HDD to the mSATA slot the
laptop just booted, I didn't need to swap the boot order so I figured...

While I was inthe BIOS I noticed a selectable setting to switch between UEFI and 'Legacy BIOS' and
the latter is selected. I don't know if that was re-set by SupportAssist when the boot order was
re-set. Do you think I should leave it as-is?

Also I must make an image of the SSD to the data drive with Macrium and create that boot flash
drive. (I hadn't had a chance to do anything until now as the last couple of days were very busy.)

Thanks a lot for your input, I've copy / pasted it all to my documents and will keep it in case I
ever need it in the future.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

~misfit~ wrote:
On 23/06/2019 10:34 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
On 23/06/2019 2:46 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
A while back I purchased a Dell Latitude E7440 laptop which came
with a standard HDD fitted. However it has a WWAN / mSATA slot
available so I bought an mSATA drive. I was short of money at the
time and couldn't afford my usual Samsung Evo SSD so bought a
Chinese 'KingSpec' SSD.

I cloned the OS and 'system' partitions from the HDD to the SSD and
it worked well, for almost a year now no issues at all, fast and
stable. I left a HDD in the laptop as well for data storage.

Then (after having run it on my Dell desktop to update drivers) I
decided to run Dell SupportAssist on the laptop last night. It ran
driver updates check, said it found updates (but didn't download or
install them, it does that after all of the testing is finished).

Then it went on to hardware testing, got to 70% done after a few
minutes and was testing the 'HDD' for various things ("Funneling"
was on screen last I think?) when the screen went black with the
message 'Your computer has encountered an error and needs to
restart". That's never good..

On restart within about a second the screen shows "Invalid
partition table!" followed by a blinking cursor and nothing further
happens. Damn!

I pulled the mSATA SSD and, using an adapter connected it via USB3
to my desktop (A Dell Optiplex 9020) and I can see both the 100MB
system partition and C: just fine. I was hoping that perhaps I'd be
prompted to 'fix' a partition table. I also connected the laptops
data driver to the desktop in case that was the issue (I've moved
the default Windows user data files to that to save space on the
SSD) but that is fine too.

So I'm assuming there's an issue with the UEFI / 100MB 'system'
partition that the test caused? (Possibly due to perhaps something
non-compliant with the cheap SSD..) If so is there any way I can
fix it without going through a complete OS install? (Would that
even work if it's a UEFI issue?) It always takes me ages to get the
OS and programmes just how I like them so if the 'system' partition
is fixable that would be awesome.

I know that this may not be strictly a hardware issue (but think
it's likely related to the SSD as SupportAssist has always run fine
for me on machines with Samsung SSDs) but I'm hoping someone here
might be able to help - or maybe point me in the right direction to
get help.

Thanks for reading.

Do you have a Macrium CD ?

Do you have a Macrium USB stick ?

If so, those have "boot repair".

But your symptoms aren't a boot issue as such, because
of your "dirty/ugly" shutdown.

Macrium has a terminal icon. That might open a Command
Prompt and then you can try

chkdsk /?

chkdsk /F c:

or similar. The installer DVDs also have troubleshooting/repair
function (the button which is the only other thing you can do
besides install). And you can open a Command Prompt from there
and do CHKDSK if you want.

Disk Management isn't completely honest about the layout. There
is a 16MB partition you can't see. It doesn't have a file system
and is likely to be the second boot stage or something.
(MBR first, 16MB second, System reserved third perhaps).
I've not been able (for UEFI installs) to get a description
of what that 16MB partition is for. The 100MB one is ESP
(EFI System Partition. There is a 128MB partition table
(which isn't a partition as such).

You can only CHKDSK C: because it has a drive letter. The
hidden partitions, I sometimes change the partition type
and make them visible, then repair them. But that's a pretty
clumsy way to do it.

If I knew exactly what was wrong (what happened), I'd be able
to hone the suggestions. About all I've got at this point,
is at least the file system was shut down dirty, so it could
use a CHKDSK to tidy up. Then you can try Macrium boot repair
if you want. It's *only* on the emergency boot media. And with
1903, we're getting to the point you almost want to build
emergency boot media using 1903 as the base for it. (Macrium 7
does that, without belaboring the point. With Macrium 7
*do not* leave a multitude of Windows OS drives in the
machine, because the clever software will build a WinPE
from the wrong OS!)

I trust you have some sort of backups at this point. If not,
make a backup first, so you don't lose anything. Macrium has
a "non-smart" backup option, in case the file system is damaged.
One would hope this is similar to "dd" but there's no proof of
that... yet.

Paul

Thanks for the input Paul. I don't have Macrium media but have it
installed on my newer machines (and on the laptop - that's how I
cloned the HDD to the SSD). I'll make a rescue USB on the desktop
later (the laptop doesn't have an optical drive and my old USB
optical died a while back) and try that but from what you've said I'm
not sure how much to expect from it.

That said anything that works would be a bonus at this stage. I've
not done command prompt stuff for years now (decades even) and have
forgotten more than I knew already g but will try it out. UEFI is
anathema to me, I know nothing about it and understand even less.
I've never seen the logic in tying a system BIOS / OS to a HDD,
that's just another point of failure.

When I try to boot the laptop there was a very brief message on
screen before the "Invalid partition table!" thing so maybe the BIOS
can rebuild the UEFI partition if I can get into it (and if that's
what failed)?

Anyway I need to go out for a while now so will tackle it later. I'm
annoyed that I don't even have the 320GB HDD that I cloned onto the
SSD anymore. I normally keep them but as it had worked fine for a
year I repurposed it as external storage in a USB enclosure.

I don't have any backups of C drive as it's not my daily driver (and
I don't have Acronis anymore - I might have to look deeper into
Macrium, I've only used it to clone a disk so far). My data is on the
2TB HDD in the laptop and I'll pull that before running any repair
attempt.

Thanks again, to be honest I'm quite out of touch with current PC
tech. I no longer class myself as a 'power user'. I haven't built a
system for ages now, instead I buy ex-lease Dell corporate stuff for
myself as it's cheaper than building my own machines and they've
proven to be very reliable in the past.

OK, if the partition table is gone, then whatever WinPE media you
can boot (Macrium uses WinPE, a Windows installer DVD uses WinPE),
it's not going to be able to see anything on that disk.

If you can get to Command Prompt

diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 1
detail partition
select partition 2
detail partition
...
exit

That's an example of getting partition info, but
assumes there is a partition table present. If the partition
table is gone, many of those steps will fail.

The program TestDisk can scan a disk. The "Quick Search" and
"Deeper Search", hardly ever seem to get the computed partition
table "just right". And I've used a Hex Editor (like HxD) to
scan manually to understand why. And I've seen multiple (what
look like) NTFS partition sectors. When I see that, it makes
it easier to understand how the scan is stumbling on materials
that would confuse it.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

The odds of that actually straightening out a disk (making
a partition table good enough to "write" to disk), in
2019, are pretty poor. I think I had it do a legacy disk
years ago (a Win2K install that got wiped out by a
Windows install disc). I use the program more for "listing files"
in hidden partitions, than for anything else.

Still, that's about all I know of for free, for that
kind of recovery.

TestDisk is cross platform. It's available as a Linux package
on Linux LiveCDs. It's available as a portable ZIP for Windows.

Paul

I've replied to John McGaw, his suggestion to check the boot priority
was the fix I needed. Once upon a time I'd have checked that myself
first but when I swapped from HDD to the mSATA slot the laptop just
booted, I didn't need to swap the boot order so I figured...

While I was inthe BIOS I noticed a selectable setting to switch between
UEFI and 'Legacy BIOS' and the latter is selected. I don't know if that
was re-set by SupportAssist when the boot order was re-set. Do you think
I should leave it as-is?

Also I must make an image of the SSD to the data drive with Macrium and
create that boot flash drive. (I hadn't had a chance to do anything
until now as the last couple of days were very busy.)

Thanks a lot for your input, I've copy / pasted it all to my documents
and will keep it in case I ever need it in the future.

I usually steer my machines with "popup boot".

I would not expect the regular boot preference
to be "sane". The boot preference changes when
the disk lineup changes. I don't see enough of
a pattern, to put any trust in outcomes.

The two options should be UEFI+CSM or UEFI. The
first one allows the option of "Legacy BIOS" and
CSM stands for "Compatibility Support Module" to
make that possible. It sounds like you're in
UEFI+CSM mode right now. If it's the case that
nothing you do relies on legacy BIOS setups, then
you could change it. The UEFI+CSM option, in
combination with the popup boot key, gives the
best of both worlds (if you need to do a UEFI
install, you boot your installer DVD in UEFI
mode -- the boot mode helps "select" the install
mode).

I don't understand the rationale of what the Dell
program was messing about with. Yes, you can mess
up the boot order. Yes, you can overwrite the
NVRAM storage of "boot paths" from a number of
places, leading to mayhem. Why would Dell be
doing this ?

Paul