SSD causes BSOD under Windows 7

I just purchased a KingFast SSD, my first ever SSD. It was quite an ordeal getting it to boot after cloning my C: partition to it. On my hard drive I have several Windows installs, but only wanted to the clone the Windows install I currerntly use. Eventually, I was able to get the SSD to boot, however, I'm sure that if I had cloned the whole hard drive, it would have booted the first time.

After Windows booted succesfully, I shut down my laptop so that I could screw the SSD into the tray it sits in, since it seemed I would not need to switch batch to my old hard drive again. When I powered up my laptop again, I got a BSOD shortly after Windows started loading.

What I have found is that I only get the BSOD if the drivers for the SSD are loaded. I can get the SSD to boot if I boot by pressing F8 and then selecting last good configuration. Once Windows boots, it will install the drivers for the SSD, which will lead to a BSOD if I reboot, unless I open Device Manager and then delete the newly installed ATA driver.

I'm well aware that I would (in theory at least) not have this problem if I had done a clean install of Windows. But, this was not really an option for me, as I did not want to have to start from scratch.

 

I think KingFast is a terrible no name low quality SSD.

 

Roger,

How did you clone the partition? How were the drives connected to the laptop? Which software? Were both drives connected for the first boot from the SSD? Which OS is the Active partition on your old HD? Win7 or WinXP?

 

Go to BIOS and set the SSD port to AHCI instead of IDE.

 

@Brian K After a could of other programs failed to create a booting SSD, I used MiniTool Partition Wizard. I then had to run Start Repair from a Windows 7 flash drive a couple of times to finally get it to boot.

When I first booted from the SSD, only the SSD was conntected. After the cloning was finished, the MiniTool rebooted my computer and the SSD was conntected via USB and the hard drive was still in place in the laptop.

The Windows 7 partition I cloned is a system partition, not active.

For some reason the SSD is not showing as being unpartitioned. I started having major issues with Windows, and after rebooting, I was not able to boot again. I've using the hard drive again, with the SSD being connected via USB.

Another problem is that Hard Disk Sentinel is showing issues - it has been since I first booted from SSD. Hard Drive Sentinel shows it window every time I boot, otherwise I would not have seen this.

 

@zapjb You are probably right. However, I have read some good reviews of KingFast drives, and it has a 3 year warranty. The seller I purchased the drive from on eBay has a 100% rating, offers 6 months technical support, and of course it was cheap. I have a very limited budget at the moment.

@oliverjia The BIOS is set to AHCI, it was never set to IDE.

 

Now sounds like you're having intermittent problems. This can be symptomatic of hardware problems. Besides looking at the SSD as the culprit, if this is a desktop the PSU is another viable suspect.

 

@zapjb It's a laptop.

 

Roger,

I'd blame your cloning method. Sorry. The SSD should be internally mounted for a clone.

I suggest using a trial version of Image for Linux (CD or UFD). Boot IFL and create an image of your HD Win7 partition to an external HD. Swap drives. Have the SSD connected internally. Boot MiniTool and delete any partitions on the SSD. Boot the IFL medium and restore your image to Free Space on the SSD. In Options select..

Set Active
Update Boot Partition
Restore First Track
Log Results to File

It should work.

 

@Brian K Thanks, I'll give that a try.

 

Use IFL (GUI)

 

Brian K is right, you clone with the target drive installed at its target interface/port.

At this point you may want to ask yourself if installing fresh and "starting over" would be less time and hassle and lead to a better end result. Additionally, it would eliminate (or confirm) an issue with the SSD itself.

 

@Brian K I followed your insturctions and ended up with a non bootable drive. I was getting the message "Bootmgr is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart," which is the same error I got after the last clone. Doing a startup repair twice, made the SSD bootable. But, after a reboot I got the same BSOD.

@Rolo42 I don't want to do a clean install, I'd rather stick with my slow hard drive.

 

Roger,

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=411

The error suggests the booting files aren't in the Win7 partition. Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management from the HD. Not the SSD.

 

@Brian K I've finally got my SSD working, by removing the Intel's Rapid Storage Technology and its drivers.

When Windows installed drivers for my SSD it was idntiying it as a KingSoft SCSI device. Some Googling revelead that this was a problem caused by RST, but one that usually didn't matter. Anyway, I uninstalled any RST drivers I could find in Device Manager and then uninstalled RST from Add/Remove Programs. After a reboot, I was left with some issues, as Windows was unable to load ATA drivers. I was able to remedy this with the driver update software Driver The Life. When I ran it it identified two drivers that needed repairing and downloaded and reapired them. After a reboot, everything was working fine. The SSD now is recognised by Windows just as KingFast, and not a KingFast SCSI device.

I used MiniTool to resize the partition to fill the drive, and have rebooted several times since then without any problems. I never knew that installing a SSD could be such a hassle.

Anyway, thanks for the help @Brian K and @Rolo42

 

Great work. Weird.