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schlitch · ‎08-13-2014

I have an ASUS G750JH purchased spring of this year and upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1 windows at that time. All has been running fine with it. Nothing has been installed on it recently. The laptop was on last night and this morning it is at the bios/setup screen. Esc and exit without save does nothing. Exit with Save simply restarts it an boots it back into the bios. No bios updates or any hardware upgrades have been performed. The SATA configuration still lists the SSD, the HD, and the cd/dvd drive. In other systems I've always been able to select a boot order, but that doesn't appear to be enabled or an ability. The only thing I attempted was setting the bios options to default with F9, but as I had never changed them, that didn't appear update anything.

I've searched for posts, but it seems they are all talking about problems after updating the bios, or attempting to install a new O/S. Nothing has been done to my system like this at all.

I suspected the SSD drive, but usually if a drive goes bad they don't show up in the bios. However, since it is an SSD, I'm sure it behaves somewhat differently.

Has anyone seen this problem reported and have solutions on where to start before I attempt warranty support?
Thanks

...so I opened the system and the ssd drives are not drives at all, but appear to be some proprietary mSATA type chips that I have no way of mounting into my external sata connector for testing (horrible idea ASUS). There were 2 of these marked 128GB and since only one SSD is appearing in the SATA configuration, I must assume that one of them is bad. Pretty sad, as this laptop has only been lightly used over a short period of time.

I'm just more confused it appears the 2 128GB SSDs are treated as one 256GB drive, so it is being recognized by the bios as being there. Wonder if I try F9 at bootup if that will wipe everything and let me start with a new win8 installation.

hmscott · ‎08-13-2014

schlitch wrote:
...I'm just more confused it appears the 2 128GB SSDs are treated as one 256GB drive, so it is being recognized by the bios as being there. Wonder if I try F9 at bootup if that will wipe everything and let me start with a new win8 installation.

schlitch, yes, it is an awesomely fast 256GB RAID0 built from 2 x 128GB M.2 NGFF SSD's, like mSata but totally a different form factor, so don't try to upgrade using mSata 🙂

So, for some reason it isn't going into Windows when booting, out of the blue... that sucks.

If the F9 works, which it might not, you can reset the PC and it will do a complete reinstall - including deleting the partitions on both ((2 x 1) + 1 = 3) drives - so if you have stuff on the 2nd bay 2.5" drive, pull that drive physically before doing the F9 reset, or you will loose all that data.

If the F9 doesn't work, you will need to RMA to Asus so they can fix the SSD failure and reload the OS + recovery image.

Then, first thing when you either get the OS reloaded via F9 or via RMA to Asus, get a 16GB USB 3.0 flash drive to create a recovery flash drive using Asus Backtracker - if you had that now you could boot on that and do a complete restore of the OS + recovery partition and not need to worry about a boot / F9 failure.

If you want to waste a bunch of time and roll your own, and F9 doesn't work, and you can't boot on a recovery DVD, and you don't have an Asus Backtracker drive, and you don't want to RMA right away - you could try rebuilding the RAID0 from the BIOS - delete the existing RAID0 and reconfigure again. Then you could install Windows 8.x from Microsoft media - but in the long run it is better to RMA to Asus to get their OEM install and recovery partition back in place.

Let us know how it works out.

schlitch · ‎08-18-2014

Thanks for the great info! I will definitely create a backup using your instructions once the system is working again. As to F9, it appears that the ssd with the recovery partition data is the bad one as it takes me directly to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Option ROM, with only options to delete raid volume or reset disks to non-raid. No restore my pc option screen with the F9 😞 So it appears ASUS RMA.

ASUS RMA process was pretty straightforward. Their local system was slow, the guy kept coming back on the line apologizing, I finally told him to just keep me on hold until he was able to get the information in the system and the RMA processed. Should be receiving an email with instructions and a mailing label to send the system back in. It would be nice if we just could have exchanged the 2 ssd chips, but they want to assess the system. That's fine as I would probably received a bad new chip with my recent luck and have to repeat the process. I'll update as the process proceeds.

hmscott · ‎08-18-2014

schlitch wrote:
Thanks for the great info! I will definitely create a backup using your instructions once the system is working again. As to F9, it appears that the ssd with the recovery partition data is the bad one as it takes me directly to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Option ROM, with only options to delete raid volume or reset disks to non-raid. No restore my pc option screen with the F9 😞 So it appears ASUS RMA.

ASUS RMA process was pretty straightforward. Their local system was slow, the guy kept coming back on the line apologizing, I finally told him to just keep me on hold until he was able to get the information in the system and the RMA processed. Should be receiving an email with instructions and a mailing label to send the system back in. It would be nice if we just could have exchanged the 2 ssd chips, but they want to assess the system. That's fine as I would probably received a bad new chip with my recent luck and have to repeat the process. I'll update as the process proceeds.

schlitch, your's is the first RAID0 failure I have seen on the G750 forum, it would be nice to find out if one of the SSD's failed, or an underlying SATA port on the motherboard, or if it was just a Windows corruption that messed up the partition.

That is why we enjoy the speed of the RAID0, but backup as if it was going to blow up at any moment - although for me it has been quite a few years of constant use on several systems without a RAID0 failure... knock on wood 😉

When you create the Asus Backtracker flash recovery drive, make sure to get a fast USB 3.0 flash drive, it really helps reduce the time it takes to build the flash drive, and restore when you need it. You will likely never need it, unless you upgrade your SSD M.2 NGFF drives to something larger, but in your case you know what it is like to not have it available to recover with... after the first time we all say - never again!! 🙂

In the future you can also file your RMA Technical Inquiry here:

https://vip.asus.com

Although I also call to make sure everything is done quickly and correctly 🙂

Please do come back and let us know how long the RMA takes, and the results!

evoluzione · ‎09-04-2016

schlitch wrote:
Thanks for the great info! I will definitely create a backup using your instructions once the system is working again. As to F9, it appears that the ssd with the recovery partition data is the bad one as it takes me directly to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Option ROM, with only options to delete raid volume or reset disks to non-raid. No restore my pc option screen with the F9 😞 So it appears ASUS RMA.

ASUS RMA process was pretty straightforward. Their local system was slow, the guy kept coming back on the line apologizing, I finally told him to just keep me on hold until he was able to get the information in the system and the RMA processed. Should be receiving an email with instructions and a mailing label to send the system back in. It would be nice if we just could have exchanged the 2 ssd chips, but they want to assess the system. That's fine as I would probably received a bad new chip with my recent luck and have to repeat the process. I'll update as the process proceeds.

maybe this comes a little late but i had my ssd failed twice on a Asus G750 JH with the proprietary ssd setup
I dont want to mention asus service
I lost files two times so i am fed up with the setup at at this point i am trying to find a solution of how to change entirely the setup
Any info would be helpful I have the two 128 ssd setup that are integradedon this adapter M.2 NGFF SATA by asus
Any help would be great thanks!

schlitch · ‎08-28-2014

Laptop arrived at ASUS Tuesday 26th...it states Repair complete on the 27th when I log into the ASUS rma check area, but not what they did, no details, nor anything about when it is shipping back. Hopefully soon and with some kind of information about if all they did was simply replace the chip.

hmscott · ‎08-29-2014

schlitch wrote:
Laptop arrived at ASUS Tuesday 26th...it states Repair complete on the 27th when I log into the ASUS rma check area, but not what they did, no details, nor anything about when it is shipping back. Hopefully soon and with some kind of information about if all they did was simply replace the chip.

schlitch, you could file another Technical Inquiry with the RMA info, and ask to be notified what exactly was replaced / fixed. If it was an M.2 SSD, a RAID controller, or something else. It may be too late, but then again, it doesn't hurt to ask. You could also ask for a shipping tracking number so you can check the progress of the shipment.

Let us know what happens! 🙂

bernardosg · ‎09-01-2014

Hey guys... My G750JZ is booting directly to BIOS too... Don't know what to do 😞 can someone help plz?

It happened after i updated windows and restarted the computer...

bernardosg · ‎09-01-2014

Seems like i dont have any boot options.. which is quite strange..

schlitch · ‎09-02-2014

Laptop has arrived back...ASUS RMA page was very UNINFORMATIVE. I had to email them to request information and when I received the shipping information it showed the laptop was arriving the same day. Updating to windows 8.1 and re-installation of all my software coming over the next few days, then creating the backup using the ASUS utility. Testing the system as I update as well. The sheet included stated that they replaced both internal 128 GB SSD chips and that's it.

From the sheet:

Repair Detail:
1 Symptom: Can't Detect HDD when Boot Up/Detected Wrong Model Name of HD
Repair: Replace SSD 128G X110 M.2 2260/X231201

2 Symptom: HDD Bad Track
Repair: Replace SSD 128G X110 M.2 2260/X231201
----
So I'm very worried about how reliable this proprietary SSD chip setup is going to be in this system.

Asus G750J only boots to bios/setup utility