Intel Confirms SSD Data Corruption Issue, Suspends Shipments Pending Firmware Update

[antiacid]

According to The Register who took the news from DailyTech, it seems that the 2nd generation 34nm products have a critical firmware bug where if you change the BIOS password once it has been set, you are locked out of the drive.

However, Intel has confirmed that it is delaying shipments of its new SSDs due to a data corruption issue affecting all of the new drives.

The problem occurs when a user sets a BIOS drive password on the new SSDs and then disables or changes the password. If the user powers off the computer, the drive will become inoperable and the data stored on it will remain inaccessible.

However, the problem will not occur if the user has not set a BIOS drive password. This erratum does not apply to computer, network or operating system passwords. Intel claims that the root cause has been identified and a new fix is currently under validation. The company expects to post an end user firmware update to fix this erratum in the next two weeks. It is not yet clear whether the new fix will be able to restore access to data on those drives, or if the firmware update would overwrite that data.

Intel is advising their SSD customers to not disable or change their BIOS drive password if they have already created a BIOS drive password.


Data that has been locked out will not be recoverable, according to a email from a representative of Intel.

I guess I'll wait a bit more before getting one of those then