Please help with this Optane D4800X

[JHanko]

I picked up a cheap 750gb optane drive to try out and for the life of me, I can't get access to it. I have spent 3 days trying everything I can think of with 2 different motherboards. A Supermicro X12 through Occulink and a Dell precision through PCIe slot-U.2 adapter. Same results with both. Basically, the drive shows no capacity. In DISKPART, it shows 4096 bytes. Any attempt to partition fails. Any attempt to convert to GPT fails with "cannot find sector requested". The only clue that I have is what the Intel Storage Tool reports when I try to run a diagnostic scan (extended data LBAs), but I have no idea what it means or how to correct it. It's also possible that this drive is DOA, but I'd like to try everything possible first. I would appreciate any help as to what to try next...

 

[NablaSquaredG]

Try Linux with nvme-cli, you should be able to change sector size. If this doesn't work, drive is probably broken

 

[zachj]

That looks approximately like what a TCG Opal encrypted drive would look like if it were still in a locked state.

not sure that drive supports the opal spec tho?

easy enough to check in Linux using sedutil

 

[JHanko]

Try Linux with nvme-cli, you should be able to change sector size. If this doesn't work, drive is probably broken

This is my first time using Linux, so have mercy. This is what comes back...

 

[JHanko]

That looks approximately like what a TCG Opal encrypted drive would look like if it were still in a locked state.

not sure that drive supports the opal spec tho?

easy enough to check in Linux using sedutil

This is the response I get from SEDUTIL...

 

[mjshark]

Try running in Linux smartctl -a /dev/nvmeX (Where X is the drive's index.)
This should show the supported LBA format sizes, and should tell you if the drive is able to be reformatted to 4KiB or 512B sectors.


NOTE*
This specific Optane D4800X drive originally came from/was intended for use in an IBM FlashSystem array, hence the 4KiB + 8B sector size.
Windows only supports drives with 4KiB or 512B sectors, which is why you were getting IO errors in Windows since the drive was formatted to 4KiB + 8B.

 

[JHanko]

I managed to re-format the drive with both 512 and 4096 block sizes using (nvme format --block-size=512) and (nvme format --block-size=4096) commands. Both complete successfully and I was able to create a partition both ways, but I was unable to format with NTSF or FAT32, no matter what I try. It always fails after a few minutes. Every time a format fails, the drive disappears from the controller until a power down/up. Not sure if it's just this drive, or a compatibility issue with all of them. I'm in contact with the seller to try and get a replacement to try.

 

[NablaSquaredG]

Which firmware version? Current firmware version is E2010650 from August 2023. Firmware Updates is definitely worth a try.

 

[JHanko]

Which firmware version? Current firmware version is E2010650 from August 2023. Firmware Updates is definitely worth a try.

I tried updating with the Intel Memory and Storage tool, but got nowhere. Currently E211IN19. Where can I get the latest version and can I force it to the drive?

 

[NablaSquaredG]

Currently E211IN19. Where can I find the latest version?

Intel® Memory and Storage Tool (GUI)

The Intel® Memory and Storage Tool (Intel® MAS) is a drive management tool for Intel® Optane™ SSDs and Intel® Optane™ Memory devices, supported on Windows*.

www.intel.com

If you need another version, google will surely find it

 

[JHanko]

If you need another version, google will surely find it

I've looked long and hard. It seems the only way to upgrade the firmware is through Intel's tool. Even if I could locate the latest version file, I have no idea how to get it loaded on the drive.

 

[NablaSquaredG]

I've looked long and hard. It seems the only way to upgrade the firmware is through Intel's tool. Even if I could locate the latest version file, I have no idea how to get it loaded on the drive.

Intel® Memory and Storage Tool CLI (Command-Line Interface)

The Intel® Memory and Storage Tool (Intel® MAS) is a drive management CLI tool for Intel® Optane™ SSDs and Intel® Optane™ Memory devices, supported on Windows*, Linux*, and ESXi*.

www.intel.com

Install the tool, follow the manual. The tool will load the FW onto the drive

 

[JHanko]

Intel® Memory and Storage Tool CLI (Command-Line Interface)

The Intel® Memory and Storage Tool (Intel® MAS) is a drive management CLI tool for Intel® Optane™ SSDs and Intel® Optane™ Memory devices, supported on Windows*, Linux*, and ESXi*.

www.intel.com

Install the tool, follow the manual. The tool will load the FW onto the drive

I tried through the Windows GUI tool and it said the version I was on was the most recent. Will the CLI version allow me to install a different firmware?

 

[NablaSquaredG]

oh, could be that it has IBM OEM Firmware

newest one should be E2010611 for D4800x

no idea whether it’s possible to flash from IBM to generic Intel

 

[Mithril]

Hey, so FWIW I picked up some of (what I believe) is the same drive off ebay.

it took me a bit to get it working only finding this thread in like hour 3 of troubleshooting lol.
first I needed to reset the lock on the drive using the PSID on the drive and intel's tool following the instructions here How to Revert Opal* Encryption in an Intel® SSD Note that I only got this to work in windows

then I did a cold boot (shutdown wait then start) and verified in linux that I could read and write from the drive. Next I used the linux tool "nvme-cli" to change the LBA format "sudo nvme format /dev/<device> --lbaf=<number>" double check you point at the right nvme device and that you select the correct LBA formats from the list of support ones when querying the device.

Finally I rebooted into windows and was able to initialize and format the drives. I will note it took a LOOOOONG time to do a quick format and the performance in windows seems a bit low so there may be some additional troubleshooting or steps I need to take.


FWIW:


=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: SSDPD21K750GAI
Serial Number: [redacted]
Firmware Version: E211IN18
PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086
PCI Vendor Subsystem ID: 0x1014
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x5cd2e4
Total NVM Capacity: 750,156,374,016 [750 GB]


I may have a newer firmware? someone point me to how to dump it and I will

 

[JHanko]

Hey, so FWIW I picked up some of (what I believe) is the same drive off ebay.

Similar experience. My drive also had a password, but removing that was the easy part. The rest took way to long and it wasn't worth waiting for the format. Something definitely locked to IBM with these. The seller sent me another drive to test and it behaved exactly the same. I returned both drives and was promptly refunded. Water under the bridge...

 

[Mithril]

Similar experience. My drive also had a password, but removing that was the easy part. The rest took way to long and it wasn't worth waiting for the format. Something definitely locked to IBM with these. The seller sent me another drive to test and it behaved exactly the same. I returned both drives and was promptly refunded. Water under the bridge...

I did end up getting it working. Doing ANY low level LBA format tends to take time, this was faster than the 12TB HDDs I had to do recently lol
Not sure what is up with windows, they seem to behave better in Ubuntu. Will have to spent more time looking this weekend

 

[zachj]

So it wasn’t opal encrypted but was bios password protected?

 

[LiKenun]

Reading this thread makes me so glad that I returned them promptly when I got four of them 1.5 TB last year. I wasn’t the first to have to return them either. I would be amused if the same batch of drives have been passed around eBay for years. They were $600 *used *. Now $360.