"CHKDSK /f" 'broke' my SSD

[coyote]

By which I mean that it isn't recognized by Windows now (it shows as "Local Disk"). This 'broken' SSD is NOT the system drive, it's 'just' a data drive. Every time I boot Windows I get the message

"Scanning and repairing drive (F:): 100% complete"

This started when I ran "CHKDSK /f" on restart for both this SSD and a HDD. Event Viewer shows a Wininit entry for (the "CHKDSK /f" for) the HDD, but no Event entry is appearing for this SSD F: "CHKDSK /f".

Yesterday I had updated the SSD firmware and ran a Diagnostic scan (which it passed AOK; and it still does now, I tried it again) with Samsung Magician. The drive worked perfectly until I ran the "CHKDSK /f" on it.

Samsung SSD 980 Pro 2TB NVMe
ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
Windows 10.0.19042 Pro 64-bit 20H2

I fear this may be related to https://www.tomshardware.com/news/chkdsk-windows-10-command-breaking-ssds but the steps there seem to relate to a system drive so I don't know what to do.

[user751201tmO21]

Why did you run chkdsk ?

SideNote: over the waaaaay too many years of software engineering, I've found the side effect of running chkdsk to not be favorable.

Which is why (well, not the only reason) I've been running Linux systems for almost 30 years 👍 😁

[coyote]

Since this is known issue, I'm hoping someone here has a fix.  Maybe I need to go to the Microsoft forum (ugh).

@user751201tmO21
I'm with you, I never ever run CHKDSK /r, I always run HDD diagnostics instead. (Because I know from long experience that if there are physical errors, CHKDSK /f can hose a disk; I was just thinking yesterday how sad it is how few know this.  But this is not what happened here.)

To summarize, a backup from the SSD to the HDD stopped working.

I found I could still backup the SSD to another HDD, so my hypothesis was that it was time to RMA the HDD.

To test that hypothesis I ran hardware diagnostics on both (Samsung Magician and HD Tune, respectively); both passed. And the HDD passed CHKDSK /f. So next step I wondered if the SSD's filesystem is AOK.

@userhNIV3Raqmj
I think I'll try to restore last night's backup instead.

[userhNIV3Raqmj]

Reformat it

[coyote]

UPDATE: Thankfully, my backup restoral fixed whatever the Windows "CHKDSK /f" did to break my SSD filesystem.

However, I need to be able to run that command; sometimes filesystems get messed up and need to be fixed, and sometimes one needs to check while diagnosing issues.

Does anyone please know how to resolve this knows potential issue with running CHKDSK on an SSD on Windows 10?

[coyote · Accepted solution]

I solved it. Not sure if I had to do both, but I updated Windows 10 from 20H2 to 21H2, then I did what https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/december-8-2020-kb4592438-os-builds-19041-685-and-19042-68... said to do, I ran CHKDSK /f in Recovery Console (after learning how to get there in Windows 10, since I didn't automatically boot into it since my issue was with a non-system drive).

Happily, the SSD's filesystem checked out AOK and CHKDSK /f in Recovery Console it didn't break it!