RC10: Samsung EVO 850 SSD Issues

[A Former User]

Server

• FOG Version: 1.3.0 RC 10
• OS: Ubuntu 14.04 64-Bit

Client

• Service Version: N/A
• OS: N/A

Description

When imaging a computer with a Samsung EVO 850 SSD installed the imaging process is successful, but when FOG reboots the computer it can’t locate the operating system or it can’t recognize the drive. A message like this appears: “00:7ae” appears on the screen.

When I image a computer with a Samsung EVO 840 SDD installed the imaging process is successful, and boots as intended.

Has anyone else had issues like this? If I need to provide more information please let me know.

[A Former User]

@Wayne-Workman

Test were successful with Clonezilla, but I was still having issues with FOG.

I decided to upgrade to latest version of the RC, which was RC 19 at the time. The imaging of an EVO 850 still failed so I decided to try something different. I created a new image on FOG and uploaded our VM to the new image (same VM used for the old image) and the imaging process worked on the EVO 850s with the newly created image on FOG.

[george1421]

@Dalton-Childers Have you swapped the 850 for a system that has an 840 to see if the issue moves? In my mind its not clear if its the SSD (IMO unlikely) or the target computer model that’s at fault here. So swapping the drives will tell use if the issue moves (then its the 850) or stays with the target system.

[A Former User]

@george1421 Yes, I’ve switched the SSD’s between units. When I discovered the issue I was a little puzzled, because I had just imaged a Dell Optiplex 990 with an EVO 840 installed. I tried imaging the EVO 850 again thinking it was just a glitch. Once the fourth attempt failed, I pulled the EVO 840 from the other machine(UnitA) and the EVO 850 from the current machine(UnitB), then wiped both drives. I then stuck the EVO 840 into UnitB and started the imaging process, which worked perfectly…I installed the EVO 850 into UnitA and had the same issue I had from the UnitB EVO 850 combo.

It’s a little weird so I’m going to do a firmware check on these EVO 850s. I’m hoping that’s the issue.

[A Former User]

@george1421

I just updated to RC11 and the issue is still present.

I’m about to check the firmware.

Here’s a photo of the exact response on boot:

[george1421]

@Dalton-Childers I think you right on track for confirming if there is a firmware update. There should be no external technical difference between the two drives. They are both presented to the host system via an SATA cable.

[A Former User]

@george1421 According to Samsung’s site, no firmware updates have been release for the EVO 850s.

[george1421]

@Dalton-Childers Hmmm… Not to send you down too many rabbit holes, but I wonder if you can take a working system that is using a EVO 840 and use clonezilla to clone it to a system with an 850. The source and destination computers should be the same. So the question does a current version of clonezilla work vs FOG. Both use the same underlying tool (partclone) to move the image around. So we need to answer the question does clonezilla work better/same as FOG when you use it to clone hard drives.

[george1421]

@george1421 Are these new Samsun EVO 850s or did they have an operating system system already on them at one time, and that operating system being Win10?

[george1421]

@george1421 One other test. Install a target OS on this system (with the EVO 850) from source media. Make sure it boots and runs acceptable. Use FOG to capture this image to the fog server. Then use FOG to deploy that same image back to that same computer. If that works deploy the captured image to a like computer. Its also not clear in my mind is it the EVO 850 at fault or your image (for some reason).

[Tom Elliott]

I’d lean more on the side of there actually being a problem with the flash rom on the EVO 850. What makes me say that? I’ve imaged many systems that contain an EVO 850 drive with no issues. I’m no longer with that work place, but I assure you EVO 850 is not the culprit itself.

[Tom Elliott]

For confirmation of “said” disk vs. firmware issue, have you tried a different EVO 850 disk?

[A Former User]

@Tom-Elliott @george1421 Something I should have noted in the beginning is the Samsung EVO 850s work fine with FOG 1.2.0.

@Tom-Elliott Per your questions, yes we tried a different EVO 850. When I original came across the issue I tried multiple EVO 850 drives with the same result.

[Tom Elliott]

@Dalton-Childers then maybe try with an older kernel version? Maybe the driver changed and is causing this issue. I don’t know fully just trying to lead to a potential solution. Does this occur simply booting into fog or at a certain point in the imaging process?

[A Former User]

@Tom-Elliott The error appears after the image has finished and the system reboots.

[Tom Elliott]

@Tom-Elliott sorry reading further thr issue isn’t in the cloning process just when it’s trying to boot

[Tom Elliott]

@Dalton-Childers can you go into a debug and get output of fdisk -l? Of course this on a disk that was just imaged to.

[A Former User]

@Tom-Elliott Exactly, the image deploys fine. The same image will work with the EVO 840s on FOG 1.2.0 or 1.3.0, and works with the EVO 850s if deployed from FOG 1.2.0.

[A Former User]

@Tom-Elliott It doesn’t make it far enough into the boot process to do that with installed OS, but I could try it by other means not sure that would yield any usable results.

[A Former User]

@george1421 Per your questions about the drives, they were both straight out of the box with no OS installed previously.

[A Former User]

@Tom-Elliott

I hooked the drive into my Mac Pro and ran diskutil list, which return the above bit of information.

The above image is sudo fdisk disk.