I’ve been running Fedora on an XPS 15 7590 for several years now, but just recently the ssd started being not found at boot. While I’m trying to get it working again I just don’t trust it any more so I’m currently looking over my options. I’ll add some more details of the situation in the spoiler below.
ssd issue details
The ssd appears to have died overnight after I believe the laptop overheated. While it is not recognized during boot no matter what I have tried it does show up when I boot to a live usb after I switched the bios settings to ahci from raid which it was apparently on by default.
Oddly, testdisk and other diagnostics that I’ve been able to run claim it is in perfect health. I am thus currently uncertain if the issue is in fact with the ssd or if it is somewhere along the line in the connection to the ssd. This is relevant because it would make replacing the ssd pointless, but I don’t know how to troubleshoot any further to figure it out at this point. Advice would be welcome on this front too.
My questions are:
a) Is it more sensible to simply buy a replacement ssd and hope that solves the problem despite the worries/doubts I have expressed in the above details, or do I accept that computer prices are never coming down again and I might as well suck it up and buy a new laptop now since they’re only ever going to get more expensive.
b) If I am to buy a new laptop now, what should that be? My budget is relatively tight at the moment, but a laptop is a valuable tool that will get much use and is worth investing in. I use one mostly for basic web dev work and light gaming, and media consumption. I have been looking primarily at Framework and System76 options but am open to other suggestion if people have them. I’ll add more details on my thoughts below.
laptop thoughts details
Framework: I understand that the ceo has gotten some flak and that they have given funding to some projects led by unpleasant people. I don’t like that, but I find myself doubtful that any other major laptop companies hands are all that more clean and I’ve got to buy from somewhere. I do also quite like their modularity and upgradability/reparability which could help me avoid a situation like this in the future.
System76: I like what I know of them and even if they aren’t necessarily the most price competitive I do respect that they’ve been a player in pushing linux hardware for some time now and I wouldn’t mind rewarding that. I’m not that interested in PopOS though.
Tuxedo Computer: I also like what I know of them (little as that is) but the shipping from Germany to Canada is killer. That said, I haven’t looked into the current import fees from the states with the ongoing trade bullshit so maybe it comes out in the wash a bit more than I think.
Dell XPS: While it’s done well by me for the most part there are a few gripes I’ve had with my current laptop and I’m not sure if I want to go back to that same well.
Thinkpads: So many damn models I’m a bit lost. I know some people love them though.
That’s all I’ve got in mind but I’d love to hear about any other options people know about that I should consider.
Thanks for any advice!
If you do end up replacing the whole laptop, oddly enough I happened to be looking into the same thing today. Two sources not in your list that you might want to consider: Starlabs and Purism.
I don’t wanna go Framework because of the aforementioned CEO shenanigans. Both System76 and Tuxedo are ultimately selling priced-up rebranded Clevo laptops, for better or worse. Both Starlabs and Purism, I believe, custom manufacture theirs like Framework does. I’m leaning Starlabs because I need something that can run at least some games, and it seemed the better contender there
Could the CMOS battery have died in your laptop, which has caused it to not detect the SSD? I have seen a dell laptop do that, and the AHCI/RAID setting caused it to not boot as well. Perhaps check if your BIOS setting for UEFI boot/legacy boot setting has also changed?
As for replacement, a new SSD is a cheap debugging step, and worst case you can put it in an enclosure and use it as a portable disk. I would try replace the SSD (after ruling out the legacy boot settings).
I don’t think laptop prices are coming down any time soon, so if all else fails, you may just have to suck it up. Perhaps checkout second hand marketplaces?
Great point on the cmos battery. Always a fun game remembering what the bios setting were to have booting again. CSM can also be an arsehole here.
Could the CMOS battery have died in your laptop, which has caused it to not detect the SSD?
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what that is. But I’ll look into it, thanks for the lead!
I wouldn’t necessarily call a new ssd a cheap debugging step (for me anyways), but you raise a good point about putting it in an enclosure; I could use a new external drive anyways. That may be the first step I take.
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what that is.
I’ll show you mine for reference, so you can guess how hard and expensive it is to replace…
Yes, that’s just a cheap button cell wrapped in plastic with a cable. Sometimes they even skip the “expensive” cable part and are directly clipped onto the board.
Its cheaper than a new laptop :/
The CMOS battery is a small button battery that holds a little power to make sure the bios settings aren’t lost. Google your laptop model, it might be an easyish fix.
If I were on the market for a new laptop, I would definitely buy from Framework
Thinkpads: So many damn models I’m a bit lost. I know some people love them though.
Good news! I’ve narrowed it down for you: get the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 7! It’s got a 10/10 repairability score on iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Lenovo_ThinkPad_T14_Gen_7
It’s what I’m rockin right now. Running Fedora Silverblue, btw. It’s great. Happy to answer any questions about it.
Keep messing around till you are sure what the problem is.
- Boot to a live usb: can you access the ssd? Might be a bad boot partition or something
- pull out the ssd and put it in a different computer or connect an old ssd/hdd to the laptop
- overheating might have disconnected the drive, maybe just try reseating it
- depending on those results debug further.
Definitely keep troubleshooting before you spend a bunch of money on new hardware while hardware costs are astronomical.
I have been looking primarily at Framework and System76 options but am open to other suggestion if people have them.
The Framework 12 is the cheapest out of the bunch, and it recently got a chip bump to the Core 300 series (so better battery life, which is nice!). If you are alright with the awful screen (which is like 60 to 70% sRGB, the reds will look orange), the rest of the laptop seems awesome (reasonable performance, good battery life, repairable, colourful, 2-in-1, fingerprint reader that supports Linux).
The next step up would be the Framework 13 Pro and the System76 Lemur Pro, both of which are new Panther Lake laptops with excellent graphics performance and battery life. The FW13 Pro uses LPCAMM2 memory while System76 has 32GB soldered (though, both have replaceable SSD). The Framework will also have their bits of an upgradeable mainboard, modular ports, DIY edition to build yourself, etc. The FW can ship with no OS (for the DIY kit), Fedora (for kit FW12), or Ubuntu (for kit FW13 Pro), while System76 ships their devices with either Pop!OS or Ubuntu. You can install any OS you would like on either machine by yourself.
If you need a dGPU, you need to look at the Framework 16 and the various large System76 devices (they have a lot of them!). You’ll sacrifice battery life for both of them in comparison to their Panther Lake siblings, but the dGPU could be important for your workflow.
Due to the memory crisis, you might want to opt out of purchasing an SSD with the laptop and get an aftermarket one for cheaper.
In a live enviornment does the disk show any partitions? Maybe your boot partition is somehow corrupted.
From the terminal in the live enviornment run lsblk
Output should look something like this (sorry formatting)
user@pc ~ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk /home
sdb 8:16 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 0 1G 0 part /boot
├─sdb2 8:18 0 32G 0 part
├─sdb3 8:19 0 64G 0 part
Ya, I get
this
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS loop0 7:0 0 2.8G 1 loop /run/rootfsbase sda 8:0 1 28.8G 0 disk ├─sda1 8:1 1 3.1G 0 part /run/initramfs/live └─sda2 8:2 1 30M 0 part zram0 251:0 0 8G 0 disk [SWAP] nvme0n1 259:0 0 238.5G 0 diskwhen I run lsblk, and
this
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors Disk model: PC SN520 NVMe WDC 256GB Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: B7455548-7C25-4CAD-8783-51BD02CDFD1E Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 1230847 1228800 600M EFI System /dev/nvme0n1p2 1230848 3327999 2097152 1G Linux extended boot /dev/nvme0n1p3 3328000 500117503 496789504 236.9G Linux filesystem GPT PMBR size mismatch (6579459 != 60437491) will be corrected by write. The backup GPT table is not on the end of the device.when I run sudo fdisk -l. (minus the bits concerning other disks)
A corrupt boot partition is one of my new leading theories. I’m really hoping that’s the case actually.
Your nvme drive has a partition table, but the backup table isn’t at the end of the disk, and none of the partitions are loaded (only the parent disk, nvme0n1, shows up with lsblk, where it should show nvme0n1p1-3 under it). The partition table at the beginning is readable, but the rest might not be. Looks like it might be a failed/failing disk as you suggested, which luckily is a simple fix.
Run
dmesgand look for errors related to the nvme device (dmesg | grep nvmefor a quick filter).Feel that the partition table looks good there, might just be a bios setting to get this booting again.
You could always mount these partitions and take a peek at the files, cd and ls with nano / vi on relevant files that are human readable.
Secureboot is my gut feeling, possibly paired with a side of CSM as to what’s prohibiting your system from booting. Could be the /boot partition is cooked too but looks like it’s at least there and listed.
From remoting into one of my systems reading a file via nano in /boot/loader/entries
Believe the same thing as you are experiencing has happened to me on my x99-WS-IPMI board due to its age. Hopefully the CMOS battery is easy enough for you to replace on your board, if that’s the failure.
Ssds die. That’s a reality. If you don’t have much money buy a replacement ssd. If it doesn’t get recognised at boot that means the connector is dead/defectuous and would look at a shop to replace it.
Buy someplace where you can return the ssd if you have afterthoughts or it does not go well.
If you have another PC I would test it there but it points towards a hardware fault. The question is which hardware.
Maybe just try cleaning the pins with some isopropyl alcohol first 🤷
Maybe just try cleaning the pins with some isopropyl alcohol first
That’s a good thought, I’ll give that a try. I’m not much of a hardware guy if it wasn’t clear before 😝
Not saying you should buy new, but compare prices with Starlabs and Slimbook etc too when you’re at it. System76 and certainly frame.work are more on the expensive side. Slimbook has had a good spare parts catalog for my model, no idea about others. Maybe wait for a Canada-EU trade deal XD
I don’t study the market but I’m not counting on price drops in the coming 2 years. Real cost will likely go down only with inflation.
Noted! And ya, funny as it is to have to consider such things it might actually be worth waiting for a trade deal if I do need to but new and can get a stop gap measure in the meantime.
if its detected from liveusb I’d recommend backing up ur important data and reinstalling, maybe something from GRUB got fucked up or maybe the partition is not marked as bootable, if u dont wanna debug just reinstall, and if u do wanna debug, be prepared to reinstall.
So basically do make a backup of the stuff u really care about, and fix.
Feel free to reply with any updates :)
you sure Fedora didn’t get corrupt? I’ve had that happen with Fedora on a bad shutdown and was no longer able to boot from the SSD boot partition.
When you run the SSD from a liveUSB can you write to it just fine? assuming you’ve backed up your data why not just try either installing another distro like Debian to test it or reinstall Fedora.
…why not just try either installing another distro like Debian to test it or reinstall Fedora.
I’ll be trying that last since while I did get most of my data off it thankfully (this was a real kick in the ass to get better about keeping backups!) I wasn’t able to get all of it and I would inevitably lose some of my settings. That said it will be my last resort.
yeah I’m honestly leaning towards it simply being a bad shutdown.
For backups I would highly suggest you look into Borg backups. There are free services that work with Borg as long as your backups are under 10GB. I’ve used borgbase.com in the past and that always worked well. With Borg you can automatically schedule your backups to not only upload them online but also to remind you to plug in like an external usb drive and backup. all backups are encrypted so really secure, fantastic tool I highly recommend.
I’ve had 2 SSDs fail. But in a different way. They just died randomly and never read any data after that. I just kept the computers, bought a new SSD and reinstalled everything.
By the way if you have a really tight budget… There’s refurbished laptops as well. I got a nice Dell 7390 for a fraction of the cost of a new laptop. Find a shop you trust, though. And it won’t be the newest model, and the battery might not be in best condition with used laptops. That’s the downsides.
