Samsung EVO firmware update

[Tunnelcat]

Have any Samsung EVO SSD owners here installed the latest firmware update on their OS drive? Have you had any issues?

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Sa ... back-speed

http://techreport.com/review/27212/sams ... h-old-data

[Krom]

I've done it on 3 drives, only one had an issue that was quickly solved by the automated boot repair on the windows 7 DVD. The other two worked flawlessly.

[Jeff250]

The DOS-based tool worked without issue for my linux laptop, but I hadn't noticed any performance problems before running the tool, and I didn't notice any performance improvements after running it, so .

[Tunnelcat]

Well great. The update may not do much of anything but it may also screw up royally.

Krom, I only have an OEM Windows 7 install disk from my computer builder. What would I need to fix any errors? A new rescue disk or backup image, or will my OEM disk suffice?

[Krom]

My Windows 7 DVDs are also OEM disks, what matters is that you can boot from it and run an install/repair/system restore from there.

Although I was playing it safe to begin with on all three machines I did it on, I first ran a full drive image backup of the SSD to a spare hard drive (used http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx ). Then even if something went horribly wrong I would have been able to restore it with a image ---> drive restore. The firmware update recommends backing up your data first (as most firmware updates do), I used Macrium Reflect because it is free, reasonably fast, and can clone the windows OS volume while windows is running. You only need to mess with boot/recovery disks if you actually have to restore the image, but in 3 out of 3 cases I didn't have to do that so it will probably be fine.

[Tunnelcat]

Thanks Krom. I'll make an image, just in case. Knowing my luck, something would probably screw up if I didn't.

[Tunnelcat]

I've got an issue. I know you recommended using macrium to make another image Krom, but I wanted to try and make a Windows backup image first before resorting to learning to use another piece of software. I know, I'm lazy. Well, to make a long story short, Windows Backup no longer works after cloning the OS to the SSD. At least that's when it broke, because I made an image backup right before I cloned the drive.

After much researching on the net, I finally figured out what the problem is. It appears that my System Reserved partition, that little 100MB one, has only 6 megs of free space left, definitely not enough for the volume shadow copy. I tried deleting and disabling the USN Change Journal, but I gained nothing. It may be recreating itself, but I don't know what piece of software could be doing it. I don't have BitLocker installed either. Something else is in there taking up a lot of space and I can't tell what it is.

So my only options are to either resize that partition to a slightly larger size so that the volume shadow copy will fit, which gives me the heebee jeebees, or use another imaging tool. What do you suggest Krom? All I want to do at this point is get the SSD firmware update installed without trashing the OS.

EDIT: Would it be better to get rid of the 100MB System Reserved partition and merge it with the main C: partition? How could that be done easily? I don't ever intend to use BitLocker, so why have the thing? I'd be happy with one single partition on my C: drive anyway. I didn't install Windows with that partition by the way, the OEM did.

[Krom]

It is possible to delete the system reserved partition, but you will have to use your windows 7 disk to repair the OS afterwards because that is the active partition with the boot loader on it by default. IIRC the recovery console is also stored there, so if you delete that partition you will be forced to use the DVD for everything.

The problem is, presumably when you cloned the OS from the hard drive to the SSD the system reserved partition at one point had a drive letter which caused shadow copy to actually start using it for shadow storage, which now fills the volume up more than the original 70% free it should be at. There is a pretty good tutorial for purging shadow copies here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/16 ... elete.html

Lastly, CCleaner, disk cleanup, and deleting all system restore points can also reduce the amount of shadow storage in use on a system (but vssadmin can remove shadow copies entirely). Note that removing a shadow copy will also remove the associated system restore point, which also extends to the full disk image backup you just created.

Full vssadmin documentation: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 54968.aspx (you can likely prevent shadow copy from filling the reserved partition again via deleting or resizing the available shadowstorage on the system reserved partition). Note, you can also add shadowstorage for one volume on a different volume, so for instance you could take the shadowstorage currently in the reserved partition and reassign it so it is on the main C: partition instead and won't fill the reserved partition anymore while retaining shadow copy functionality.

[Tunnelcat]

As I remember, after the original cloning process, there was a drive letter assigned to that partition that I had to remove. The partition was even called a "data" partition originally, not "system reserved". I'll check out those links and see if I can purge that probable resident shadow copy from that partition. What a mess.

I do have ccleaner and I already removed all but one restore point and did a general disk cleanup, even in the event log. But I guess that 6 megs left out of 100 megs is just not enough to run windows image backup.

UPATE:

I assigned a drive letter to the system reserved partition and here is what was listed with a dir command:

$RECYCLE.BIN
Boot
Bootmgr
System Volume Information
1File(s) 383,786 bytes
3Dir(s) 5,091,328 free

You'll notice that all I have free is slightly under 6 megs and what's supposed to be there is there. I can't see any other files or folders that would be taking up so much space. Is there any way to find out what the hell's hiding in there? I can get rid of all shadow copies on the C: partition, but there's still something filling up that 100 meg partition.

[Krom]

An important note about system volume information, that folder is by default protected with system only read permissions which means you cannot even view how big it is, it will simply say 0 bytes even from an elevated command prompt.

Try this: Hit Windows+Pause to pull up system information, click System Protection on the side, highlight the drive letter which is the system reserved partition, click configure, turn off system protection for that drive, then push the delete button which should immediately purge all restore points and shadow copies.

You can also remove the recycle bin folder, you may have to grant permissions and take ownership first, but remove it last right before you dismount the partition or it will typically be re-created by windows the next time you delete something on _any_ drive.

[Tunnelcat]

I gave that partition a drive letter, Q: for example and tried your suggestion. It never showed up in system protection as a drive option. Still had only the C: drive listed. I couldn't even try to delete shadow copies or restore points.

[Krom]

Well, the other solution is to just clone the partition to an image somewhere, then immediately restore it back, but it has to be done with a utility that doesn't work with shadow copy (so like ghost in a dos boot disk). Because that way the cloning utility will ignore the restore points and shadow copies because it can't access them anyway.

Otherwise you can manually delete all the restore points and shadow copies inside system volume information, which is quite a bit of work because first you have to actually unlock the folder permissions so you can access it.

[Tunnelcat]

What's the best way to go about that for the folders in this particular partition? The other option I read about in my researching was to recreate the boot partition and delete the old one, but it sounds a little scary. I also found somewhere that the vss commands cannot be performed in Windows 7 Professional, not that I would know what commands to use in the first place.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/maga ... 48398.aspx

[Krom]

I'm running windows 7 professional and vssadmin worked when I tried it (at least I was able to list and read all the shadows/storage/etc, I didn't try removing any of them).

Here is a tutorial for deleting shadow copies (multiple methods): http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/16 ... elete.html

[Tunnelcat]

Yeah, I saw that link in your earlier post, so I'll guess I'll go hunting. Presently, there are only 2 restore points on my C: drive, which showed up with the vssadmin command, but no others. Now in order to get the reserved partition to show any shadow copies with that command, do I have to put a drive letter on that partition again so it's not hidden? By the way, thanks for your help. One little thing like an image backup is turning into quite the hairball. I should have deleted ALL shadow copies before I did the cloning. I didn't even think about it.

Will macrium work with my reserved partition all filled up if I get desperate, since Windows is being such a butt?

[Krom]

Yes, Macrium should work (since it will simply ignore shadow copies and restore points same as most other disk cloning utilities).

[Tunnelcat]

I have the .exe ready to go if I can't purge WHATEVER is hiding in that damned partition. Thanks again Krom.

[Tunnelcat]

Krom, using vss commands, I did figure out that there are no shadow copies in the reserved partition, only the two in the C: partition. So that leaves the USN change journal as the cuprit, which I'm not to sure what to do about. Since I'm not using BitDefender, I don't know what other program is using it and I'm afraid to muck with it.

[Tunnelcat]

The DOS-based tool worked without issue for my linux laptop, but I hadn't noticed any performance problems before running the tool, and I didn't notice any performance improvements after running it, so .

After I installed the firmware update, I noticed a considerable difference in my boot time, it got really fast again. I did notice that my system was starting to take a little longer to boot as time went on, so the update definitely made a difference for me.

[Grendel]

Have any Samsung EVO SSD owners here installed the latest firmware update on their OS drive? Have you had any issues?

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Sa ... back-speed

http://techreport.com/review/27212/sams ... h-old-data

Late to the game.. Ran the Performance Restoration Tool 1.1 yesterday on my test rig w/ an 840 Evo. No problems.

[Tunnelcat]

Really late to the game.

[Tunnelcat]

Hate to dredge this up again, but has anyone here seen or installed the "second" performance firmware update to Samsung EVO drive? Apparently the first one didn't fix things completely and they were supposed to release another "fix" according to Maximum PC mag. I'd like to know if anyone ran into any hiccups before I check for a firmware update in the Magician program.