Suddenly the reason they changed the default from being in instant access mode to power off mode maybe wasn’t for the environment like they said but to prevent the SSDs from self destructing.
But even if you did change the power state it’s not like it won’t delete that partition unless it explicitly states with a notice or something. Why would Microsoft take time to delete a partition that FUBRs a Xbox SSD just by changing a setting. Even if you did swap to the new power state and your drive failed, you will have to get a new SSD and even still that SSD would need the encryption key to boot. Is a HSM module but with some soft/firmware trickery
It's ironic that the Xbox has a removable SSD which can't be replaced and the PS5's SSD is soldered onto the board but can be replaced (with difficulty).
Great video Phil, I think the software inside the invisible partition is corrupted so it doesn’t matter how many you copy that 1gb partition the next one will fail too.
Apparently what you say it make some sense but the way I see it is not like that because my thinking is that 1GB partition kept exclusively for the pairing key, so is not used to write on it frequently or even at all(for example updates and games), because there's nothing there but key. So that partition *should be in good condition. Its still bizarre that the whole SSD failed so quickly, even with the "Always-on" option of the console. Maybe its a very low quality SSD that MS put in all Xbox Series.
@@Joe3D that 2230 ssd doesn't have DRAM cache, very probably has QLC cells and also does many background reads/write. All these makes the SSD wear very fast.
Had the same issue last year with my Series X. Same error code. Reached out to Microsoft. But since my warranty expired, I had to pay 200 euro to get it repaired... So i declined, and sold the system for 150 for parts. So I'm using my old Xbox One X, which still works fine after almost 6 years. I did replace the internal HDD with an SSD. But more and more games are not working on the older Xbox One X, because the developers have moved on. And I'm not going to spend another 550 for a Series X. So got myself a PC instead, and will be using that to play all the upcoming Microsoft games. Microsoft have failed me as a company. Plus their main focus is cloud instead of Xbox.
Someone should get pcie protocol analyzer and find out what was accessed at boot. I'm pretty sure the first thing will be a checksum somewhere for the key. That would be a good starting point to reverse engineer that partition.
From my experience as a PC technician in the past, the ssd's are dying not from wear itself, at least not like that, there should be quite alot of failed sectors first, and even then it wont fail right away and depending on failed sectors outside of filled reserve, it can work for years up untill filed sectors where system files are located, and still it wont lead to detection or freezeng issue when connected to different OS, unless bad sectors are accessed (not on initial initialization or smart readout), I've had a 9 year old SSD with few thousands failed sectors and insane amount of wear, that worked still, untill system corruption occurs, but no freezing and if os is reinstalled, it still worked for some time. In case of failing Xbox drives, and 99% of failed SSD's, especially NVMe, it is the controller that fails, not the memory, and it can fail in few ways, either compleetely, or not, in second case we'll have a freezes whed windows trying to detect the drive, incorrect capaciry, name of the drive, so on, abd it happens randomly with any drive, no mather the wear, NVMe are operating under higher temperatures, that lead to shorter lifespan or even solder degradation under controller chip. Another, most likely succesfull fix would be controller replacement, or data recovery from chips themselves (not a trivial task at all).
I have an old 80gb HDD from back around the early 2000s, and i used it for years in an old PC until, it started making a loud clicking sound and I'd have to reset it a few times before windows loaded. I stopped using it and moved along with life... until just recently. Like literally a couple weeks ago. I remembered that i had a few things on there that are hard/impossible to find now, so i decided to see what i could do. And it's difficult but I'm managing to rescue almost all of it. It keeps freezing and slowing down. So anyway, hard drives hdd or ssd, doesn't seem like they just up and quit on you. Unless, you *really* damage it badly somehow.
Not always. I've had customers with Kingston SSDs that are working perfectly, and the next day it is not detected by any computer at all. I've also had some kingstons that still work but unstable, and another that became read-only. I have had such a high failure rate with Kingston drives specifically that I boycott them now, its not worth the data loss and hassle.
I repair mobiles..Flash memory always dies. Just because it has a limited write and read cycles life span. If you buy a SSD there is even a price tag on it. That is based on how many cycles the factory can guarantee you. The higher the cycle count. The higher the price
Yes, but most nand flash memory has hundreds of thousand of read and write cycles. A Samsung envy me m.2 980 has like 800, 000 read and write cycles that would last possibly 8 to 10 years or more depending on how many right cycles you're doing. And it's more important is it's the right cycles. Not really the recycles.
@@usguyver What are you talking about? Samsung gives an endurance rating of 600TB written on the 980 1TB. 600 write cycles. Even their low end enterprise NVMe PM9A3 1.9TB is rated for 3504 TB of writes. 1844 write cycle.
thankfully i stuck with my PS4 OG lol and didn't go to the PS5 or series X. And the best part is it still has never BLOD'd or WLOD'd so it still works :)
I'd be keen to see if you can read original drive while it's frozen with freeze spray. You may have to keep spraying it during the operation to ensure it can keep reading until it's done.
Someone should get this to a news outlet, put pressure on them to offer SOME form of recovery. Surely some other chip in the bootchain holds updatable firmware besides just the SSD? Or Microsoft must have a recovery and factory programming tool for these, unless they write drives prior to installing.
IMO this is criminal as most countries now have a right to repair. SSD's and all memory sticks etc fail more frequently than real hard drives ever did. Microshite really need to do something about this !!!
There's no such thing as a right to repair but more companies are staring to allow it on stuff like laptops phones and stuff like this, you still don't have that right on consoles even the ps5
@@jamesw884 i belive its in a comanys best interest to offer right to repair. the more you lock someone out of your product the harder they work to get around it to fix there device smart people keep digging and digging and if they look hard enough they just mnight find something you dont want them to find. ways to exploit the console to hack it etc.
Couldn't agree more, I'm still using my trusty old xbox one and was about to buy the series x, that's not going to happen now, what should I get? a beefy PC? Any guidance would be much appreciated :)
the og xbox had a hdd lock password that caused prety much the same issue. we were eventually able to read this code from the lpc/eeprom on boot up and make recovery drives. this is just a ms standard practice console protection /anti piracy thing.
yeah it just so happens to help their bottom line by making the storage not freely upgradeable, and if you want to upgrade you have to buy the proprietary "expansion card" with the hefty markup, but masked as for "security" reasons like companies always do.
@@charlesbronson1959 They licensed it to Seagate, if you think they are not taking a large share of the 300% markup over a normal m.2 ssd you live in a fantasy world.
The SSD wont fail due to it simply being powered on, it will eventually fail due to the amount of writes and the main culprit to cause a failure will be the controller of the drive. As for cloning a drive, regardless of encryption of the drive you should be able to clone it using some decent cloning software
Tesla had the same problem , constantly reading a writing to internal storage behind the touch screen center console, they ended up doing an update on software so this does not happen.
I speculate that MS made the Xbox Series to do constantly redundant copy and write in the background to intentionally wear the SSD. Thats the only plausible explanation for a 1TB SSD that dies in 200 days.
@@ryutenmen except it's a lie. They would all die at 200 days then but they don't. Believe what you want but if you repeat stupidity you may end up sounding unintelligent.
So years later down the road when MS no longer manufactures this console… it will essentially be a dead paperweight. And there’s no ability to actually “fix” it because of the dumb encryption.
Really wish Microsoft said something sooner and was honest about the reason for the energy saving power option. Just had a look at mine now and set it to shut down now when I power it off using the controller instead of using the standby option and as far as I can see there is an option to power down the drive when the console is off when standby is set
@@mikethedigitaldoctorjarvis Nope, we weren't, they never said that. You along with many others misunderstood a comment said by one developer at a developer's conference, where he referred to how they are still working on Windows 10, unlike in the past where they begin working on the next version after one ships. They had no plans for a replacement for Windows 10, everything was more features or standalone projects like 10X. 5 years went by, leadership at the Windows team changed and they decided it would be good to start working on a new version.
Around the 3:50 mark..what your explaining about the console being off but still drawing power..unfortunately it’s happening on the new PS5 PRO too..as I switched it on at the wall after plugging it all in..I straight away heard a faint humming noise coming from the console..even before booting it up..thanks to this video I’m now aware of it mate cheers..but just letting you all know 👍..always best to switch off at wall when not playing I guess..stuff that
You could try ddrescue instead of dd the next time… it tries harder on sector errors and also skips them and tries them later - it also has a log for the progress which can be resumed at any time. Also you could set the blocksize to the actual sector size of the SSD. Btw: if the kernel hangs on I/O… dd will have a hard time quitting.
Another reason to use ddrescue is that if dd encounters a read error it just acts like that block wasn't there so your data could end up shifted if you try and restore from an image you get from dd, ddrescue keeps track of that and fills errored reads with 0s iirc so that your data doesn't get misaligned
The original Xbox had the hard disk password locked with a key that was made from the serial number of the Xbox, it's xbox live id and the hdd serial number and unless you had the first two numbers from the eeprom you couldn't change the hard disk in it. This type of thing isn't terribly new for MS.
This is what I recommend doing. Sad part is that doing so will cost you somewhere around 100-200 . You can get a pretty cheap ssd to ssd cloner for about 40-45, the 2230 M.2 SSD 1t is the costly piece of this cloning puzzle, it will cost anywhere between 45-160.
@@jamezxh Cloning SSD's does work, it's been done many times here by the repairer here that posted this video. The point is that you've got to clone the SSD before it goes bad. If your SSD has already failed, it's too late. I use to do this for many of my older consoles, I kept a backup of my psp's sd card, my ps2's modded HD, my OG Xbox HD and now my series X. Again it's going to cost you a bit to get the ssd cloner and the back up 1tb SSD card but it will turn out to be worth it in the event that you need the backup.
@@0errab0 you don't need to buy the SSD unless the drive actually dies. You should be able to get away with just keeping the 1 GB image on your computer/a random flash drive and only write it to a new SSD if you need to later. You also don't need a SSD cloner, just a computer with a slot for the SSD.
As a person that only owns a series x as his mane form of entertainment. This is super concerning. I'm on disability so its a little rough trying to keep up with tech/gaming period. I use my Series x for everything. SMH Thx for the update @TheCod3r keep up the great work man
@@acurisur That's nuts because I just turned that setting on for both my Series X and S, I thought it was quite convenient. Now I find out I was killing my consoles 😭😭
Remember when Microsoft offered advice to save money on electricity bills by recommending power save instead of instant on wonder if it was their way of fixing it without admitting there is a problem.
@@hazed1009if mine dies and Microsoft won't fix it for free, I'll happily go back to Sony or just stick with Nintendo. Until customers vote with their dollars, corporations won't do better.
I’ve generally avoided power saving mode. My reason is it creates big read/write operations via the quick resume feature. Sure, there’s some i/o during stand-by but nowhere near the amount created by quick resume. Standby keeps the game loaded in RAM. Correct me if I’m wrong
Maybe it's just me but it looks like he never put the heat sink back on the NVME that might have been why it was getting errors. It was overheating if he didn't have the back on.
They must know about it because a couple months ago the released an update that put all consoles into turn off mode and if you wanted always on you had to go turn it back on
I'm looking forward to a next gen console but honestly don't know which one is going to last. My PS4 is fine but there are some games coming up that I kind of want.
Just like the 360’s Red Ring of Death (which is a general hardware failure), this SSD failure on the Series X/S will force Microsoft to increase the warranty of their consoles.
You could probably find a better way to circumvent the virtual environment if and when all data is accessible on the SSD. Not easy but it's more likely then since there has to be a reason why you can't read that partition.
It's bad enough they both Sony and Microsoft married the drives to the motherboards but to actually code the SSD to the motherboard is ridiculous if they made consoles more user friendly that may sell more anything to make us replace reason I don't like all these new game consoles I'd rather stick to my retro. Keep up the good work Phil 👍😊
The last (barely)worthwhile console gen was the previous one - PS4/Xbox One. The new gen is just a pretext for more control, to sell your data(at least on Xbox Series it forces you to accept this when you first set it up) and to condition people for future where everything will be seen, controlled and imposed, liberty taken, etc. A dystopian tool.
@@jamezxh well, that strange take appear as such because the its in contrast with normal dystopian reality that already has started to set in, and people have accept it; they are seeing those things as normal.
@@acurisur Did I defended the mobile phones on contract, or does you thoughts do not belong to you? You are so mentally blind you dont even know the concept of thinking before speaking, let alone actually doing it.
It strikes me that's a ram problem when you do an update it uses the rem in a different order and when you reboot every goes in its proper place with one faulty bit
Someone ask me the other day if they should buy a PS5 or an Xbox series. I told them to buy a PS4 Pro or a Switch. Microsoft and Sony are competing with themselves by having two consoles each on the market, and they're both losing this generation of the console wars against themselves. 3 years into the lives of these consoles, the Series X hasn't even sold more units than the Dreamcast, and only two original exclusive games have been published for the PS5. If suits were smart, they would be engineers or coders.
Yea I got both the seriesX and ps5 and most games have been available for last gen also with very few next gen exclusives and the series x/ps5 version most often makes you choose between 60 fps performance mode or graphics mode at 30 fps. Definitely not feeling next gen this time around
And a lot os Sony exclusives are now coming to pc, While man of xboxs are already on PC as well..Nintendo honestly is the only one left with console exclusive games
yeh u are right the xbox series x has been another flop its sold half of what ps5 sold, the ps5 is the choice to go say in the next few years though the switch and ps4 pro are becoming too old for the new games
Guessing instant on is similar to hibernation, where the 10GB of RAM are written to SSD every time it goes to low power? That'd eat up TLC flash endurance in a hurry. You might want to look into ddrescue instead of plain dd
I have a day one XBox Series X that is permanently left on in standby mode with auto-updates in the background, and has had a *lot* of gameplay. The internal SSD is about 3/4 full, as is the addon SSD. I have a 6TB external backup drive that has about 4TB on it. I'm a now retired electronic engineer and find it very hard to believe that these failures are even slightly common. Don't fill your SSDs and then wear levelling can do its job better. No different to PCs!
Yeah mine has been on for well over a year. Maybe turned off like 5 times. It still works flawlessly. Sure I know eventually it may break down or something but thats what happens.
You said yourself that you’re a retired EE- most users do not know about wear levelling, and to be honest they shouldn’t have to. If you have x amount of space, you should be able to use x amount of space. They should really add additional space that isn’t even presented as usable storage so that there’s an additional buffer.
@@minixtvbox No. Leaving 10 to 20% of the actual available capacity gives plenty of space for wear levelling, especially as the XBox will mostly be reading from the SSD. I've pre-ordered the 2TB XBox to keep more games ready to play rather than swapping them in from either the 6TB hard drive or the latest external 4TB SSD I've added 🙂
Microsoft doesn't want you to be able to increase your storage capacity using this method. The PS5 boot SSD is soldered to the board but you can upgrade using a regular off the shelf Gen4 NVME. MS wants you buying those stupidly overpriced Seagate drives. WD is making them now too, but it's still an odd form factor.
And msft could likely fix both problems with little effort. Unlock the internal nvme DRM & allow a expansion adapter for third party nvme drives . They won’t fix either
I had my PS5 set to output power through the front USB all the time, I never knew it kept the machine on. The fan was also spinning, just was not making any noise. Now it does, after a year...
It is more than likely dust buildup in the fan causing the noise. I had the same issue, then opened up my PS5, cleaned the fan, vents, inside, etc, then put it back together and no more fan noise in rest mode, plus my fan no longer goes to max unnecessarily.
Mine died after 14months due to this, local shop couldn’t not repair. Manages to get 250 back from Curry’s. Extended warranty for me this time. Tossers.
Hey phil have you tried to diagnose what is failing on these SSDs? If it is the controller chip that might be replaceable with a donor. IDK that I would send that back to a customer like that but it could fix the SSD long enough to guarantee a clone. Also sometimes caps can go bad on SSDs kinda like any other electronic device.
They still haven't sorted out why the screen goes to fuzzy sometimes when playing games i.e. like no content on the screen , sometimes it corrects itself and other times you have too turn the console off and restart the console.
Which makes me wonder if just being on is causing it to be written to. Though it's also possible the problem could lie elsewhere. Of course if Microsoft didn't force the SSD to be paired to the board and have its own specific security checks this could've been over a long time ago.
Another tech said the key changes with every update? So even if you backed it up 6 months ago you'd restore that backup and because it's not the correct key from say yesterday you brick your console?
Microsoft made xbox controller from recycled plastic and e-waste a whole system at the same time. It's weird that the system accepted it once then don't after a reboot. Visual inspection around the m.2 port also remove the battery to clear the cmos.
Last year I had a bit of spare cash so I had to decide whether to buy an Xbox X or build a new PC,thank my lucky stars I went for the PC build......................................
It is possible to interface with storage expansion module rear side with an adapter module. This only provides extra storage and doesn't solve the wear issue.
While you have all the equipment to test everything, could you check the following? If we use the external expansion drive on the series X, there is a setting that says: “setup to use on many consoles /swap between consoles” and another that says: “setup for use on this console”. If we choose the second, is it possible that Xbox writes that secret encrypted key/partition to the external seagate expansion drive as well? And if the internal drive fails then we could possibly disassemble the external drive, and put the nvme from it on Series X board? Could you check with an external expansion drive to see it there is an XBFS partition present there?
No, you cant, as the paring key between the internal SSD and motherboard is only on the internal SSD. The expansion SSD only increase the storage for games, not for OS/system files.
I was unclear if the issue you were having was caused by the device or the security... if it works reliably with a functional source drive perhaps you can offer a user-backup service for folk who would like a insure themselves against later loss of a drive? Keep up the great work 😀👍
The issue is both. The hardware will fail & It's Impossible to Replace because of encrypted security that's unreadable on computers... only option is to buy another
@@wholsalelovei believe this is incorrect. dd can copy encrypted data without reading it, last i checked. its not actually copying the data itself but the 1s and 0s that makeup the data
My Xbox series one crapped out not too long ago. It would randomly freeze during boot up and I’d have to completely erase the hard drive. I refused to get a new Xbox, I bought a better SSD drive and installed it and redownloaded the OS. I won’t buy another Xbox, if I get a system I’m going back to good old Sony.
If it is indeed the SSD, then my only thought would be that part of that 1GB partition was already corrupted. Would make sense as to why it boots to an extent and the intermittently errors out. Either that or the (new) SSD itself is ok and the fault is somewhere else on the board along the data transmission.
if the 1GB partition were corrupted the console would fail to attempt to boot because the signature would be unreadable. If it were corrupted it would not have been able to decrypt to boot in the first place.
@@travisholt92 That all depends on the level of corruption. Working in IT I've experienced many drives that are partially corrupted and some sectors are still good. We don't 100% know what part of the partition is required to be good for the console to attempt to boot. He only has to clone a drive for a second for it to work, so it's likely a super small piece of data. This means it could potentially on a good sector but surrounded by bad ones... Which are maybe required to read/write to in order to complete the update process...? But unless we break the encryption we'll never know.
@@tomburnham6640 the way to know for sure would be quite simple. Backup the xbfs partition as a .img file using dd commands, open the img file in a hex editor to determine if the entire partition is encrypted or just a header and/or footer signature. If there is any human legible code between the header and footer, the entire partition is NOT encrypted making it possible for corruption within the xbfs partition. If the entire partition is encrypted and there is corruption, the partition would fail to decrypt/boot. Eventually I'll tear my Xbox Series S apart to confirm or debunk my theories on this device. Gotta do the 1TB storage upgrade at some point and backup that xbfs partition to potentially prevent future bricking.
My series X is turning off randomly and has no error codes. Tried factory reset, power cord swap, HDMI cable swap,changed the power settings and even changed outlets im at my wits end. Conveniently my warranty ended 2 weeks ago.
Same with mine, 3 days out of warranty and it turns off randomly or near instantly when I start a enhanced game. Screen flashes green and it goes off. I have read so many comments going back 3 years of people having the same thing happen but can't find out why.
10:50 what cable brand? I am not familiar with cable brands in Europe. If you have the same or similar brands to USA, highly recommend *avoiding* these brands (because of terrible quality, durability, & lifetime use): ONN, BlackWeb (Walmart store brands) & majority of gas station brand cables as well.
Tesla had the same problem , constantly reading a writing to internal storage behind the touch screen center console, they ended up doing an update on software so this does not happen.
IMHO, the encryption system uses not only that partition but also the serial number of the SSD. That would explain everything and it's fairly easy to implement from a software point of view.
SSDs can be swapped, only the controller model matters (or perhaps the firmware on that controller, maybe another drive could be flashed to work like the Xbox 360 days) and the contents of the first partition
Dakota, instant on doesn't constantly read and or write the SSD. I'm also on IT technician. I fix computer hardware and software. I can tell you that instant on other Xbox keeps it in a very very low power state, now. You can also turn off the f****** external hard drive or you can turn off another drive. As I also have a USB 3.0 external NVMe attached to my Xbox in a two terabyte form. Again, the instant on keeps me very low. Power state does not write and it only reads to it or rights to it when there is an update or there is a need to write to it. Otherwise it does not write to it or read it. It is an instant on if you need to want to have a remote access to your Xbox if you're away from it and you want to basically use it as a server to play your games using remote play. I'll be the only time that it comes on or it comes on when it needs an update or it needs updated game. Otherwise it does not write to it and it does not read it. So you were wrong that it is failing because of it possible reading or writing. Like other people have said in your comments, but you have not responded to. Is most likely a failed or bad controller which could fill for many different reasons. But this is not the SSD.
I've ran ssd's in my pc for years everyday for multiple tasks never ever has one let me down yet, so that tells me it can't really be that what fails in an xbox
"Suddenly the reason they changed the default from being in instant access mode to power off mode maybe wasn’t for the environment like they said but to prevent the SSDs from self destructing" "You will own nothing and be happy" Feeling happy about Microsoft buying every game company, everyone?
A year late but the original xbox hdd was key locked to the motherboard, 360 was dvd drive locked but you could at least format the hard drive to the console. Xbox one is dvd and ssd locked but as the ssd isn't user changeable so there's no formatting option. It's to prevent piracy because there's a lot of clever people with access to expensive equipment and there's always a way to circumvent security. On top of that, if you have control over the system the hard drive is the gold mine.
Would it be smart to just take apart your series console after you’re warranty expires, remove the ssd, and make a backup to another one just so in the case it does die you have a clone of the drive that you could use to actually fix the console.
@@FR4M3Sharma yea but I believe they change the key of the ssd every time there’s a system update so you would have to take it apart every time you update your console and clone the drive which is pretty dumb.
Glad I stopped at xbox one. Main reason annoyed to have to upgrade consoles after every 2 years, the other is no room. The bonus to a xbox series x is no need for liquid metal. So simple solution is i switched to pc gaming :)
you are getting it wrong. Its not xbox's always on but maybe the instant turn on while the game is paused and written to SSD. THAT IS THE THING. PS5 did it right and just do fast boot for current game when paused but will be closed when starting an other app or game. Xbox wears down the SSD by keeping 3 or more games open.
Not Even Ps3 or Ps4 dies that Too. If you play a game and go on to play a Different Game on Either Console like The Ps5 the Game you played will Close out.
Hello, Cod3r. I ran into a similar problem, the xbox series x gave errors E200 and E201, and periodically it allowed the system to be installed completely, but then rebooted again with these errors. I found another working ssd from another xbox series x, copied the first partition with the key to it, installed the system and... After 15 minutes work and the reboot, it returned the error E200 again. So most likely the problem is not in the ssd drives. Moreover, the first ssd from the xbox series x also had no errors in SMART.
So we have to assume this unreadable encripted sector must be to prevent people upgrading tgeir ssd to a larger size without buying their official licenced out approved hardware. And as there isnt any larger official ssds it stops it. Also prevents the sale of parts if a machine is broken up for parts because something is defective that cant be swapped out. I would speculate that this was one of those last minute decisions made without enough consultation with their proper engineers who would have pointed out that this would be an issue. Someone said we have given seagate the sole rights to produce memory expansion (no doubt for a hefty fee) so we have to encode it so you cant buy a replacement third party m2. (Also did they put it on a sector that makes it impossible to clone?) The result when paired with their unforeseen sleep/shutdown problem is a console that will brick itself and become unrepairable. So whats the solution here? Could xbox do a software update that could actually allow us to replace the ssd with one off the shelf by any manufacturer or has this been encoded onto a part of the drive that cant be read/written by the console itself? Would this require an external m2 ssd reader and a pc to even attempt it? This could be a true disaster for xbox. It will be one of the greatest recall cockups, up there with the rest of them. I reckon microsoft might not like this video if all this is so easy to discover. They might attack your channel , better be careful youtube dont try to find something, anything you may have released that breaks their "code" They could come after you hard, This is potentially billions of dollars in revenue loss we could be talking about for microsoft. Id be worried wouldnt you?
So the issue is that the SSD can not be replaced because it is linked to the motherboard, and that means the console will brick should that SSD ever fails, and the fact that the Series consoles are more often than not set to quick start energy mode that means that the SSD is always on, which greatly reduces it's lifespan. Is that it?
The most damage will be done through read/write so thats actually whenever you download, moving, deleting, playing games, quick start will have the least impact compared to the mentioned ones so doesn't worth to be turned off, you will save close to nothing from it.
@@LEXOTANYL quick resume if on will write to the drive every time you stop playing which is actually worse than downloading or transferring. Quick resume writes every time you stop playing. Download writes and transfers are only when you decide to do it. And read doesn't affect the drive. The biggest culprit is writes that's why drives use something called TBW>Terabytes written to give you an estimation of its write durability.
@@majorasspain5341 But for downloading a game lets say 100gb is worse that quick resuming? how much writing would a quick resume make use of to save its state? I'm not an expert but with my poort brain I would though that downloading is more heavy duty than quick resume :P
@@LEXOTANYL because having quick resume on mean's the drive is constantly going to be written to every time you stop playing. Downloading is only when you choose to do so.
Plus try holding the power button and the sync button for 30 seconds until you get 2 beeps then let go ..if the same thing happens the console needs the update from a USB stick
I have had to replace my ssd when I contacted Microsoft to get it repaired they wanted 299 for an out of warranty fix I bought an ssd and cloned my drive but now I am having update issues
Really don't know what possessed Microsoft to go back to locking drives like on the original Xbox. That's incredibly dumb and I really don't think it is even a security measure. It's a straight up anti-repair move. I'd say for anybody who has the right tools and knowledge it would make a whole lot of sense to backup the Xbox SSD to an image or another drive to keep as a backup.
I'd try a Linux desktop, with a standard ATX mainboard. i'd also try Mac OS X in a 2010 tower with an NVMe card, just in case you can somehow read the card that way.
It sounds like people should get their consoles backed up while they are still in good condition. That's disgraceful. My PC is on most of the day, most days. The SSD has 83% life left, after 1083 days of constant use.
I am trying to fix my own Series X device. I have diagnosed a short due to a chip called ATMP 155. Any idea what is it and is it easy to find replacement?
MAYBE since new keys are generated during recovery, there may be an undocumented mechanism for entering recovery without valid keys present. Why they wouldn't program their bootrom to check for a recovery USB if no valid keys were found? Well, because the US hasn't a shred of consumer protection law or right to repair legislation- yet.
Can you clone a working Xbox to another SSD? A flash SSD *should* go into read-only mode once it fails, unless there's a damage/fault within the chip (it is possible too) - and you should be able to clone it bit-wise to another drive. (Likely why you can get other consoles to work) Why will this boot when set to US - likely Microsoft has 2 folders in the encrypted partitions, one 'stock' and one 'live'. The live which has the UK (and other settings) might have been corrupted, and the console reverts to the 'stock' when it starts up. Just as with the PS4 battery draining, causing games not to start unless connected to the internet - I would imagine Microsoft also have to do an update in order to ignore/fix-restore errors in the 1GB partition. A way to get the console to last longer is *NOT* to fill the entire drive... Delete whatever is not in use, leave +50% free space Leave the drive as empty as possible, this way the drives firmware does not need to do so many erase cycles when it is managing data storage moving stuff around in order to store small file-writes. (This is a good advice in general on *all* SSD's and OS's, It also improves speed if/when the partition is near full)
Why is everyone focused on the data loss and not the console bricking? Maybe I am being naive but all your games and saves are on the cloud. You can delete a game, reload it, and your saves come back.
Because of the limitation of USB and the external box you won't be able to access the hidden partition. I remember reading somewhere that a PC with an empty mvme slot it may be possible to recover the hidden partition and then recover it to another mvme ssd.
Wanted to add Xbox added the software key in that partition and when the xbox is powered on it checks that partition and if no key if found it shut down. This is simply their way to control end user from changing the SSD to anything other then official XBOX hardware. They did the same with the add on SSD, but now that is slowly going away, now that the contract is expiring with Seagate. Just another tactic that is being used to control pricing and size limitations.
isn't it possible some components on the motherboard or the ssd controller itself thats failing/killing them? if a new working drive still can't read/write properly then it wasnt just the drive fault.
Sorry to go aganist you opinion Phil, but sony didn't do anything right otherwise they should have make a removable ssd. They both failed on that part, microsoft surely more but even sony isn't that behind it
Again reads wont affect the drives life only writes will but the downside on these systems are that they are writing data almost constantly during their power on state, you can mitigate it to an extent by turning off the always on state, turning off the constant background video capture and by limiting the use on the drive by using an extrnal ssd drive to store your games.
Possible solution: take your SSD and connect it to a computer then clone your SSD encrypted hardware key partition to another SSD using the UNIX comand DD (any linux live cd can do it and there are tutorials on how to on the internet) after cloning the partition just try a low level format on the old damaged drive just for curiosity (I have recovered functionality of SSDs with an old tool named HDD Guru LLF) Note: a low level format is when you delete all partitions and write the whole raw disk with zeros. if the old SSD is not recovered at least you will have your encrypted hardware key en another drive.
Psu is not pairing to the boards, and the cloning works it just will not connect because the psu is keyed to the boards and has to be changed in the Xbox Xbf file at Microsoft.
Suddenly the reason they changed the default from being in instant access mode to power off mode maybe wasn’t for the environment like they said but to prevent the SSDs from self destructing.
You can turn off the storage when the console is off if you have the sleep mode active.
@@bruhWTH43Nice advice.
@@bruhWTH43 doesn't that only affect external storage?
@@SaberKingofKnights1 both
But even if you did change the power state it’s not like it won’t delete that partition unless it explicitly states with a notice or something. Why would Microsoft take time to delete a partition that FUBRs a Xbox SSD just by changing a setting. Even if you did swap to the new power state and your drive failed, you will have to get a new SSD and even still that SSD would need the encryption key to boot. Is a HSM module but with some soft/firmware trickery
It's ironic that the Xbox has a removable SSD which can't be replaced and the PS5's SSD is soldered onto the board but can be replaced (with difficulty).
Great video Phil, I think the software inside the invisible partition is corrupted so it doesn’t matter how many you copy that 1gb partition the next one will fail too.
Apparently what you say it make some sense but the way I see it is not like that because my thinking is that 1GB partition kept exclusively for the pairing key, so is not used to write on it frequently or even at all(for example updates and games), because there's nothing there but key. So that partition *should be in good condition.
Its still bizarre that the whole SSD failed so quickly, even with the "Always-on" option of the console. Maybe its a very low quality SSD that MS put in all Xbox Series.
It says 5563 GB Total Host Writes, that is nothing so can't understand what's the problem...
@@ryutenmen²
@@Joe3D that 2230 ssd doesn't have DRAM cache, very probably has QLC cells and also does many background reads/write. All these makes the SSD wear very fast.
Had the same issue last year with my Series X. Same error code. Reached out to Microsoft. But since my warranty expired, I had to pay 200 euro to get it repaired...
So i declined, and sold the system for 150 for parts. So I'm using my old Xbox One X, which still works fine after almost 6 years. I did replace the internal HDD with an SSD. But more and more games are not working on the older Xbox One X, because the developers have moved on. And I'm not going to spend another 550 for a Series X.
So got myself a PC instead, and will be using that to play all the upcoming Microsoft games.
Microsoft have failed me as a company. Plus their main focus is cloud instead of Xbox.
Glad to see you made the jump & I hope you enjoy your PC. PC just keeps looking better and better(not to mention it now gets Sony’s games. W
Someone should get pcie protocol analyzer and find out what was accessed at boot.
I'm pretty sure the first thing will be a checksum somewhere for the key.
That would be a good starting point to reverse engineer that partition.
I had the same thought
Anybody seen progress on this front?
I think it has been cracked already herd of modified series x’s going around in some circles at MIT
You Naughty Boy / Girl !!
From my experience as a PC technician in the past, the ssd's are dying not from wear itself, at least not like that, there should be quite alot of failed sectors first, and even then it wont fail right away and depending on failed sectors outside of filled reserve, it can work for years up untill filed sectors where system files are located, and still it wont lead to detection or freezeng issue when connected to different OS, unless bad sectors are accessed (not on initial initialization or smart readout), I've had a 9 year old SSD with few thousands failed sectors and insane amount of wear, that worked still, untill system corruption occurs, but no freezing and if os is reinstalled, it still worked for some time. In case of failing Xbox drives, and 99% of failed SSD's, especially NVMe, it is the controller that fails, not the memory, and it can fail in few ways, either compleetely, or not, in second case we'll have a freezes whed windows trying to detect the drive, incorrect capaciry, name of the drive, so on, abd it happens randomly with any drive, no mather the wear, NVMe are operating under higher temperatures, that lead to shorter lifespan or even solder degradation under controller chip. Another, most likely succesfull fix would be controller replacement, or data recovery from chips themselves (not a trivial task at all).
thats why I will use mechanical for data back is easier to recover always raid 1 am just an enthusiast but good enough nearly to be a technician...
@@AnonIllumi id rather solder a controller or memory to another ssd swapping platters is a nightmare and takes so much more work
I have an old 80gb HDD from back around the early 2000s, and i used it for years in an old PC until, it started making a loud clicking sound and I'd have to reset it a few times before windows loaded. I stopped using it and moved along with life... until just recently. Like literally a couple weeks ago. I remembered that i had a few things on there that are hard/impossible to find now, so i decided to see what i could do. And it's difficult but I'm managing to rescue almost all of it. It keeps freezing and slowing down.
So anyway, hard drives hdd or ssd, doesn't seem like they just up and quit on you. Unless, you *really* damage it badly somehow.
Not always. I've had customers with Kingston SSDs that are working perfectly, and the next day it is not detected by any computer at all. I've also had some kingstons that still work but unstable, and another that became read-only. I have had such a high failure rate with Kingston drives specifically that I boycott them now, its not worth the data loss and hassle.
@@yotoprules9361San disk it is from now on then
Planned obsolescence = Microsoft job security! Lol
Yeah and the PS5’s SSD is soldered.
They've been doing it with controllers and getting away with it, why not start doing it with consoles?
That's every electronics manufacturer in existence, including sony
Microsoft doesn’t even fix them?? I sent one off and they sent it to the Bosch factory in Germany.
Consoles are sold at a loss wouldn't it be more profitable to have them last alot longer ???
I'll never buy another Xbox if my series x has this problem
Louis sent me. Subscribed. Youre doing gods work.
I repair mobiles..Flash memory always dies. Just because it has a limited write and read cycles life span. If you buy a SSD there is even a price tag on it. That is based on how many cycles the factory can guarantee you. The higher the cycle count. The higher the price
What do you mean by flash memory ?
You mean internal storage of the mobile or usb storage ?
@@abdulqadrakram5953 They're both NAND flash, generally.
@@abdulqadrakram5953 be it USB or Mobile phone, both use Flash memory, or NAND. Both will have a limited write cycle life span.
Yes, but most nand flash memory has hundreds of thousand of read and write cycles. A Samsung envy me m.2 980 has like 800, 000 read and write cycles that would last possibly 8 to 10 years or more depending on how many right cycles you're doing. And it's more important is it's the right cycles. Not really the recycles.
@@usguyver What are you talking about? Samsung gives an endurance rating of 600TB written on the 980 1TB.
600 write cycles.
Even their low end enterprise NVMe PM9A3 1.9TB is rated for 3504 TB of writes.
1844 write cycle.
thankfully i stuck with my PS4 OG lol and didn't go to the PS5 or series X. And the best part is it still has never BLOD'd or WLOD'd so it still works :)
I'd be keen to see if you can read original drive while it's frozen with freeze spray. You may have to keep spraying it during the operation to ensure it can keep reading until it's done.
I believe that could work if one of the chips are failing.
Someone should get this to a news outlet, put pressure on them to offer SOME form of recovery. Surely some other chip in the bootchain holds updatable firmware besides just the SSD? Or Microsoft must have a recovery and factory programming tool for these, unless they write drives prior to installing.
IMO this is criminal as most countries now have a right to repair. SSD's and all memory sticks etc fail more frequently than real hard drives ever did. Microshite really need to do something about this !!!
There's no such thing as a right to repair but more companies are staring to allow it on stuff like laptops phones and stuff like this, you still don't have that right on consoles even the ps5
@@jamesw884 i belive its in a comanys best interest to offer right to repair. the more you lock someone out of your product the harder they work to get around it to fix there device smart people keep digging and digging and if they look hard enough they just mnight find something you dont want them to find. ways to exploit the console to hack it etc.
Couldn't agree more, I'm still using my trusty old xbox one and was about to buy the series x, that's not going to happen now, what should I get? a beefy PC? Any guidance would be much appreciated :)
the og xbox had a hdd lock password that caused prety much the same issue. we were eventually able to read this code from the lpc/eeprom on boot up and make recovery drives.
this is just a ms standard practice console protection /anti piracy thing.
Yep and pretty much forced you to hard/soft mod it just to replace hdd. Then why go back after that. :)
yeah it just so happens to help their bottom line by making the storage not freely upgradeable, and if you want to upgrade you have to buy the proprietary "expansion card" with the hefty markup, but masked as for "security" reasons like companies always do.
@@m4nt1c0r3s That ms make no money on
@@charlesbronson1959 They licensed it to Seagate, if you think they are not taking a large share of the 300% markup over a normal m.2 ssd you live in a fantasy world.
@@charlesbronson1959 the only way they wouldn't be making money on it is if they weren't making any sales.
The SSD wont fail due to it simply being powered on, it will eventually fail due to the amount of writes and the main culprit to cause a failure will be the controller of the drive. As for cloning a drive, regardless of encryption of the drive you should be able to clone it using some decent cloning software
Tesla had the same problem , constantly reading a writing to internal storage behind the touch screen center console, they ended up doing an update on software so this does not happen.
I speculate that MS made the Xbox Series to do constantly redundant copy and write in the background to intentionally wear the SSD. Thats the only plausible explanation for a 1TB SSD that dies in 200 days.
@@ryutenmen except it's a lie. They would all die at 200 days then but they don't. Believe what you want but if you repeat stupidity you may end up sounding unintelligent.
@@ryutenmen MS have NOT deliberately sabotaged the SSD in their Xboxes. This kid knows nothing.
@@theaustralianconundrum ok, maybe it's like you say, but to believe you, you must give us some pertinent arguments.
I suggest you do the byte for byte copy again and just let it run, it might take a day or two but let it complete and finalise.
So years later down the road when MS no longer manufactures this console… it will essentially be a dead paperweight. And there’s no ability to actually “fix” it because of the dumb encryption.
Really wish Microsoft said something sooner and was honest about the reason for the energy saving power option. Just had a look at mine now and set it to shut down now when I power it off using the controller instead of using the standby option and as far as I can see there is an option to power down the drive when the console is off when standby is set
Microshaft honest ! 🤣they even said windows 10 was going to be the last name just updates from here on in ! look how that turned out !
@@mikethedigitaldoctorjarvis Nope, we weren't, they never said that. You along with many others misunderstood a comment said by one developer at a developer's conference, where he referred to how they are still working on Windows 10, unlike in the past where they begin working on the next version after one ships. They had no plans for a replacement for Windows 10, everything was more features or standalone projects like 10X. 5 years went by, leadership at the Windows team changed and they decided it would be good to start working on a new version.
Just turn it off. Not hard
they seriously need to update the system firmware to reformat a new SSD. heaven sakes...
Around the 3:50 mark..what your explaining about the console being off but still drawing power..unfortunately it’s happening on the new PS5 PRO too..as I switched it on at the wall after plugging it all in..I straight away heard a faint humming noise coming from the console..even before booting it up..thanks to this video I’m now aware of it mate cheers..but just letting you all know 👍..always best to switch off at wall when not playing I guess..stuff that
You could try ddrescue instead of dd the next time… it tries harder on sector errors and also skips them and tries them later - it also has a log for the progress which can be resumed at any time. Also you could set the blocksize to the actual sector size of the SSD.
Btw: if the kernel hangs on I/O… dd will have a hard time quitting.
Yeah... You'll see what happens when your SSD fails and you face several hundred $ repair cost at MS
Another reason to use ddrescue is that if dd encounters a read error it just acts like that block wasn't there so your data could end up shifted if you try and restore from an image you get from dd, ddrescue keeps track of that and fills errored reads with 0s iirc so that your data doesn't get misaligned
The original Xbox had the hard disk password locked with a key that was made from the serial number of the Xbox, it's xbox live id and the hdd serial number and unless you had the first two numbers from the eeprom you couldn't change the hard disk in it. This type of thing isn't terribly new for MS.
would it be smart to pull it out early and make a clone to another drive as backup?
yes thats a very smart idea consdiering the fatal design flaw or you can hope for a future update which will remove this flaw.
This is what I recommend doing. Sad part is that doing so will cost you somewhere around 100-200 . You can get a pretty cheap ssd to ssd cloner for about 40-45, the 2230 M.2 SSD 1t is the costly piece of this cloning puzzle, it will cost anywhere between 45-160.
Cloning doesn’t works
@@jamezxh Cloning SSD's does work, it's been done many times here by the repairer here that posted this video. The point is that you've got to clone the SSD before it goes bad. If your SSD has already failed, it's too late. I use to do this for many of my older consoles, I kept a backup of my psp's sd card, my ps2's modded HD, my OG Xbox HD and now my series X. Again it's going to cost you a bit to get the ssd cloner and the back up 1tb SSD card but it will turn out to be worth it in the event that you need the backup.
@@0errab0 you don't need to buy the SSD unless the drive actually dies. You should be able to get away with just keeping the 1 GB image on your computer/a random flash drive and only write it to a new SSD if you need to later. You also don't need a SSD cloner, just a computer with a slot for the SSD.
As a person that only owns a series x as his mane form of entertainment. This is super concerning. I'm on disability so its a little rough trying to keep up with tech/gaming period. I use my Series x for everything. SMH Thx for the update @TheCod3r keep up the great work man
Backup your unique partition
You will need to backup every time you have a update from Microsoft
Just don't use the sleep function and fully power down the Xbox and you should be fine.
Just game and enjoy your Xbox. I've had mine on instant on for over 2 years and it's fine. This is ridiculous.
@@acurisur That's nuts because I just turned that setting on for both my Series X and S, I thought it was quite convenient. Now I find out I was killing my consoles 😭😭
Remember when Microsoft offered advice to save money on electricity bills by recommending power save instead of instant on wonder if it was their way of fixing it without admitting there is a problem.
That was my first thought. They used the media spin machine to say its more green, but its just to delay the inevitable storage death.
My thoughts exactly
So what do we do? Sell the console? No more xboxs?
That very much feels like a shifty Microsoft non solution.
@@hazed1009if mine dies and Microsoft won't fix it for free, I'll happily go back to Sony or just stick with Nintendo. Until customers vote with their dollars, corporations won't do better.
I’ve generally avoided power saving mode. My reason is it creates big read/write operations via the quick resume feature. Sure, there’s some i/o during stand-by but nowhere near the amount created by quick resume. Standby keeps the game loaded in RAM. Correct me if I’m wrong
Correct it keeps it in cached memmory which needs power else it clears.
Its similar to windows hybernation which allows quick start.
Designed to brick after warranty on default with anti right to repair features, not surprising sadly but good to know.
Maybe it's just me but it looks like he never put the heat sink back on the NVME that might have been why it was getting errors. It was overheating if he didn't have the back on.
you should try to find out what update the Xbox software was on and install the same version
They must know about it because a couple months ago the released an update that put all consoles into turn off mode and if you wanted always on you had to go turn it back on
The voice of reason , this guy is a genius .Love the vids .
At 5:54 UA-cam CC be like : "My name is Dakota" 😂
I'm looking forward to a next gen console but honestly don't know which one is going to last. My PS4 is fine but there are some games coming up that I kind of want.
Well a Series S is the cheapest investment if you're worried about it breaking, lol
I'm smelling a class action lawsuit coming about. Either Microsoft addresses this quickly or it's going to be quite costly for them.
3RL all over again...
Just like the 360’s Red Ring of Death (which is a general hardware failure), this SSD failure on the Series X/S will force Microsoft to increase the warranty of their consoles.
At least MS warranties problems. Sony had an equal failrates with the yellow light of death but unlike MS, didn't warranty it.
You could probably find a better way to circumvent the virtual environment if and when all data is accessible on the SSD.
Not easy but it's more likely then since there has to be a reason why you can't read that partition.
You can, by making a back-up of that 1GB partition when the SSD is still working.
It's bad enough they both Sony and Microsoft married the drives to the motherboards but to actually code the SSD to the motherboard is ridiculous if they made consoles more user friendly that may sell more anything to make us replace reason I don't like all these new game consoles I'd rather stick to my retro. Keep up the good work Phil 👍😊
The last (barely)worthwhile console gen was the previous one - PS4/Xbox One. The new gen is just a pretext for more control, to sell your data(at least on Xbox Series it forces you to accept this when you first set it up) and to condition people for future where everything will be seen, controlled and imposed, liberty taken, etc. A dystopian tool.
@@ryutenmen that’s a strange take on a machine you just play games on 😂
@@jamezxh well, that strange take appear as such because the its in contrast with normal dystopian reality that already has started to set in, and people have accept it; they are seeing those things as normal.
@@ryutenmen It's no different to the terms you sign up to when you take out a mobile phone contract.
You can take the tin foil hat off now.
@@acurisur Did I defended the mobile phones on contract, or does you thoughts do not belong to you?
You are so mentally blind you dont even know the concept of thinking before speaking, let alone actually doing it.
It strikes me that's a ram problem when you do an update it uses the rem in a different order and when you reboot every goes in its proper place with one faulty bit
Have mine seen the beginning still works perfect. Fingers crossed.
Someone ask me the other day if they should buy a PS5 or an Xbox series. I told them to buy a PS4 Pro or a Switch. Microsoft and Sony are competing with themselves by having two consoles each on the market, and they're both losing this generation of the console wars against themselves. 3 years into the lives of these consoles, the Series X hasn't even sold more units than the Dreamcast, and only two original exclusive games have been published for the PS5. If suits were smart, they would be engineers or coders.
Yea I got both the seriesX and ps5 and most games have been available for last gen also with very few next gen exclusives and the series x/ps5 version most often makes you choose between 60 fps performance mode or graphics mode at 30 fps. Definitely not feeling next gen this time around
@@ghostdragon2593 ps5 can do 120hz you just need a TV that can run it
And a lot os Sony exclusives are now coming to pc, While man of xboxs are already on PC as well..Nintendo honestly is the only one left with console exclusive games
@@theday2164 120hz upscaled garbage.
yeh u are right the xbox series x has been another flop its sold half of what ps5 sold, the ps5 is the choice to go say in the next few years though the switch and ps4 pro are becoming too old for the new games
Guessing instant on is similar to hibernation, where the 10GB of RAM are written to SSD every time it goes to low power?
That'd eat up TLC flash endurance in a hurry.
You might want to look into ddrescue instead of plain dd
I have a day one XBox Series X that is permanently left on in standby mode with auto-updates in the background, and has had a *lot* of gameplay. The internal SSD is about 3/4 full, as is the addon SSD. I have a 6TB external backup drive that has about 4TB on it. I'm a now retired electronic engineer and find it very hard to believe that these failures are even slightly common. Don't fill your SSDs and then wear levelling can do its job better. No different to PCs!
Yeah mine has been on for well over a year. Maybe turned off like 5 times. It still works flawlessly. Sure I know eventually it may break down or something but thats what happens.
You said yourself that you’re a retired EE- most users do not know about wear levelling, and to be honest they shouldn’t have to. If you have x amount of space, you should be able to use x amount of space.
They should really add additional space that isn’t even presented as usable storage so that there’s an additional buffer.
3/4 full that's full
@@minixtvbox No. Leaving 10 to 20% of the actual available capacity gives plenty of space for wear levelling, especially as the XBox will mostly be reading from the SSD. I've pre-ordered the 2TB XBox to keep more games ready to play rather than swapping them in from either the 6TB hard drive or the latest external 4TB SSD I've added 🙂
Microsoft doesn't want you to be able to increase your storage capacity using this method. The PS5 boot SSD is soldered to the board but you can upgrade using a regular off the shelf Gen4 NVME. MS wants you buying those stupidly overpriced Seagate drives. WD is making them now too, but it's still an odd form factor.
And msft could likely fix both problems with little effort. Unlock the internal nvme DRM & allow a expansion adapter for third party nvme drives . They won’t fix either
Hi did you report this to Microsoft? If so what did they say to you?
I had my PS5 set to output power through the front USB all the time, I never knew it kept the machine on. The fan was also spinning, just was not making any noise. Now it does, after a year...
Could just be some buildup causing the fans to work harder. This will happen to me with my computer if I haven't dusted it in a while.
It is more than likely dust buildup in the fan causing the noise. I had the same issue, then opened up my PS5, cleaned the fan, vents, inside, etc, then put it back together and no more fan noise in rest mode, plus my fan no longer goes to max unnecessarily.
Mine died after 14months due to this, local shop couldn’t not repair. Manages to get 250 back from Curry’s. Extended warranty for me this time. Tossers.
What you did? Lots of rewritting and did not left any free space?
@@Lordicus21 pardon?
Hey phil have you tried to diagnose what is failing on these SSDs? If it is the controller chip that might be replaceable with a donor. IDK that I would send that back to a customer like that but it could fix the SSD long enough to guarantee a clone. Also sometimes caps can go bad on SSDs kinda like any other electronic device.
They still haven't sorted out why the screen goes to fuzzy sometimes when playing games i.e. like no content on the screen , sometimes it corrects itself and other times you have too turn the console off and restart the console.
Technically leaving the console on ALWAYS ON mode won’t do anything to the drive. The problems should start after a certain amount of read and writes.
Which makes me wonder if just being on is causing it to be written to. Though it's also possible the problem could lie elsewhere.
Of course if Microsoft didn't force the SSD to be paired to the board and have its own specific security checks this could've been over a long time ago.
Another tech said the key changes with every update? So even if you backed it up 6 months ago you'd restore that backup and because it's not the correct key from say yesterday you brick your console?
Microsoft made xbox controller from recycled plastic and e-waste a whole system at the same time.
It's weird that the system accepted it once then don't after a reboot.
Visual inspection around the m.2 port also remove the battery to clear the cmos.
Last year I had a bit of spare cash so I had to decide whether to buy an Xbox X or build a new PC,thank my lucky stars I went for the PC build......................................
It is possible to interface with storage expansion module rear side with an adapter module. This only provides extra storage and doesn't solve the wear issue.
While you have all the equipment to test everything, could you check the following? If we use the external expansion drive on the series X, there is a setting that says: “setup to use on many consoles /swap between consoles” and another that says: “setup for use on this console”. If we choose the second, is it possible that Xbox writes that secret encrypted key/partition to the external seagate expansion drive as well? And if the internal drive fails then we could possibly disassemble the external drive, and put the nvme from it on Series X board? Could you check with an external expansion drive to see it there is an XBFS partition present there?
Oh, and I mean to test that with a working Xbox, for example if you already were using an expansion drive while your Xbox was working.
No, you cant, as the paring key between the internal SSD and motherboard is only on the internal SSD. The expansion SSD only increase the storage for games, not for OS/system files.
No. All that option does is optimise the updates for the particular hardware the drive is attached too.
have you seen what they sell the memory cards for? thats why.
I was unclear if the issue you were having was caused by the device or the security... if it works reliably with a functional source drive perhaps you can offer a user-backup service for folk who would like a insure themselves against later loss of a drive? Keep up the great work 😀👍
The issue is both. The hardware will fail & It's Impossible to Replace because of encrypted security that's unreadable on computers... only option is to buy another
@@wholsalelovei believe this is incorrect. dd can copy encrypted data without reading it, last i checked. its not actually copying the data itself but the 1s and 0s that makeup the data
My Xbox series one crapped out not too long ago. It would randomly freeze during boot up and I’d have to completely erase the hard drive. I refused to get a new Xbox, I bought a better SSD drive and installed it and redownloaded the OS. I won’t buy another Xbox, if I get a system I’m going back to good old Sony.
If it is indeed the SSD, then my only thought would be that part of that 1GB partition was already corrupted. Would make sense as to why it boots to an extent and the intermittently errors out.
Either that or the (new) SSD itself is ok and the fault is somewhere else on the board along the data transmission.
if the 1GB partition were corrupted the console would fail to attempt to boot because the signature would be unreadable. If it were corrupted it would not have been able to decrypt to boot in the first place.
@@travisholt92 That all depends on the level of corruption. Working in IT I've experienced many drives that are partially corrupted and some sectors are still good.
We don't 100% know what part of the partition is required to be good for the console to attempt to boot. He only has to clone a drive for a second for it to work, so it's likely a super small piece of data. This means it could potentially on a good sector but surrounded by bad ones... Which are maybe required to read/write to in order to complete the update process...?
But unless we break the encryption we'll never know.
@@tomburnham6640 the way to know for sure would be quite simple. Backup the xbfs partition as a .img file using dd commands, open the img file in a hex editor to determine if the entire partition is encrypted or just a header and/or footer signature. If there is any human legible code between the header and footer, the entire partition is NOT encrypted making it possible for corruption within the xbfs partition. If the entire partition is encrypted and there is corruption, the partition would fail to decrypt/boot.
Eventually I'll tear my Xbox Series S apart to confirm or debunk my theories on this device. Gotta do the 1TB storage upgrade at some point and backup that xbfs partition to potentially prevent future bricking.
My series X is turning off randomly and has no error codes. Tried factory reset, power cord swap, HDMI cable swap,changed the power settings and even changed outlets im at my wits end. Conveniently my warranty ended 2 weeks ago.
Same with mine, 3 days out of warranty and it turns off randomly or near instantly when I start a enhanced game. Screen flashes green and it goes off. I have read so many comments going back 3 years of people having the same thing happen but can't find out why.
10:50 what cable brand? I am not familiar with cable brands in Europe. If you have the same or similar brands to USA, highly recommend *avoiding* these brands (because of terrible quality, durability, & lifetime use):
ONN, BlackWeb (Walmart store brands) & majority of gas station brand cables as well.
Tesla had the same problem , constantly reading a writing to internal storage behind the touch screen center console, they ended up doing an update on software so this does not happen.
Hope you get to the bottom of the problem. Shared your video hope someone can help.
Thanks buddy, I appreciate the support
I love your channel am a huge fan keep up the good work brother much love from Jamaica 🇯🇲
IMHO, the encryption system uses not only that partition but also the serial number of the SSD. That would explain everything and it's fairly easy to implement from a software point of view.
SSDs can be swapped, only the controller model matters (or perhaps the firmware on that controller, maybe another drive could be flashed to work like the Xbox 360 days) and the contents of the first partition
Swapping the firmware might do the trick.
Would you recommend people clone the SSD while it's good, just in case?
That's what I plan on doing now lol
Dakota, instant on doesn't constantly read and or write the SSD. I'm also on IT technician. I fix computer hardware and software.
I can tell you that instant on other Xbox keeps it in a very very low power state, now. You can also turn off the f****** external hard drive or you can turn off another drive. As I also have a USB 3.0 external NVMe attached to my Xbox in a two terabyte form.
Again, the instant on keeps me very low. Power state does not write and it only reads to it or rights to it when there is an update or there is a need to write to it. Otherwise it does not write to it or read it.
It is an instant on if you need to want to have a remote access to your Xbox if you're away from it and you want to basically use it as a server to play your games using remote play.
I'll be the only time that it comes on or it comes on when it needs an update or it needs updated game. Otherwise it does not write to it and it does not read it.
So you were wrong that it is failing because of it possible reading or writing.
Like other people have said in your comments, but you have not responded to. Is most likely a failed or bad controller which could fill for many different reasons. But this is not the SSD.
I've ran ssd's in my pc for years everyday for multiple tasks never ever has one let me down yet, so that tells me it can't really be that what fails in an xbox
"Suddenly the reason they changed the default from being in instant access mode to power off mode maybe wasn’t for the environment like they said but to prevent the SSDs from self destructing"
"You will own nothing and be happy"
Feeling happy about Microsoft buying every game company, everyone?
I heareed about such things on recent past, those keys exist to avoid piracy but were questioned bt lot of people if was reallt necessary...
A year late but the original xbox hdd was key locked to the motherboard, 360 was dvd drive locked but you could at least format the hard drive to the console. Xbox one is dvd and ssd locked but as the ssd isn't user changeable so there's no formatting option. It's to prevent piracy because there's a lot of clever people with access to expensive equipment and there's always a way to circumvent security. On top of that, if you have control over the system the hard drive is the gold mine.
Would it be smart to just take apart your series console after you’re warranty expires, remove the ssd, and make a backup to another one just so in the case it does die you have a clone of the drive that you could use to actually fix the console.
Yup, if you can do it.
@@FR4M3Sharma yea but I believe they change the key of the ssd every time there’s a system update so you would have to take it apart every time you update your console and clone the drive which is pretty dumb.
I nearly spat out the coffee in my mouth when I saw your mug, it's the same one i use in work. XD
Glad I stopped at xbox one. Main reason annoyed to have to upgrade consoles after every 2 years, the other is no room. The bonus to a xbox series x is no need for liquid metal. So simple solution is i switched to pc gaming :)
you are getting it wrong. Its not xbox's always on but maybe the instant turn on while the game is paused and written to SSD. THAT IS THE THING. PS5 did it right and just do fast boot for current game when paused but will be closed when starting an other app or game. Xbox wears down the SSD by keeping 3 or more games open.
Not Even Ps3 or Ps4 dies that Too. If you play a game and go on to play a Different Game on Either Console like The Ps5 the Game you played will Close out.
Hello, Cod3r.
I ran into a similar problem, the xbox series x gave errors E200 and E201, and periodically it allowed the system to be installed completely, but then rebooted again with these errors.
I found another working ssd from another xbox series x, copied the first partition with the key to it, installed the system and... After 15 minutes work and the reboot, it returned the error E200 again.
So most likely the problem is not in the ssd drives.
Moreover, the first ssd from the xbox series x also had no errors in SMART.
So we have to assume this unreadable encripted sector must be to prevent people upgrading tgeir ssd to a larger size without buying their official licenced out approved hardware. And as there isnt any larger official ssds it stops it.
Also prevents the sale of parts if a machine is broken up for parts because something is defective that cant be swapped out.
I would speculate that this was one of those last minute decisions made without enough consultation with their proper engineers who would have pointed out that this would be an issue.
Someone said we have given seagate the sole rights to produce memory expansion (no doubt for a hefty fee) so we have to encode it so you cant buy a replacement third party m2. (Also did they put it on a sector that makes it impossible to clone?)
The result when paired with their unforeseen sleep/shutdown problem is a console that will brick itself and become unrepairable.
So whats the solution here? Could xbox do a software update that could actually allow us to replace the ssd with one off the shelf by any manufacturer or has this been encoded onto a part of the drive that cant be read/written by the console itself? Would this require an external m2 ssd reader and a pc to even attempt it?
This could be a true disaster for xbox. It will be one of the greatest recall cockups, up there with the rest of them.
I reckon microsoft might not like this video if all this is so easy to discover. They might attack your channel , better be careful youtube dont try to find something, anything you may have released that breaks their "code"
They could come after you hard,
This is potentially billions of dollars in revenue loss we could be talking about for microsoft. Id be worried wouldnt you?
So the issue is that the SSD can not be replaced because it is linked to the motherboard, and that means the console will brick should that SSD ever fails, and the fact that the Series consoles are more often than not set to quick start energy mode that means that the SSD is always on, which greatly reduces it's lifespan. Is that it?
Pretty much. Gotta fully power off the console every time after playing if you want it to have any longevity.
The most damage will be done through read/write so thats actually whenever you download, moving, deleting, playing games, quick start will have the least impact compared to the mentioned ones so doesn't worth to be turned off, you will save close to nothing from it.
@@LEXOTANYL quick resume if on will write to the drive every time you stop playing which is actually worse than downloading or transferring. Quick resume writes every time you stop playing. Download writes and transfers are only when you decide to do it. And read doesn't affect the drive. The biggest culprit is writes that's why drives use something called TBW>Terabytes written to give you an estimation of its write durability.
@@majorasspain5341 But for downloading a game lets say 100gb is worse that quick resuming? how much writing would a quick resume make use of to save its state? I'm not an expert but with my poort brain I would though that downloading is more heavy duty than quick resume :P
@@LEXOTANYL because having quick resume on mean's the drive is constantly going to be written to every time you stop playing. Downloading is only when you choose to do so.
Plus try holding the power button and the sync button for 30 seconds until you get 2 beeps then let go ..if the same thing happens the console needs the update from a USB stick
I have had to replace my ssd when I contacted Microsoft to get it repaired they wanted 299 for an out of warranty fix I bought an ssd and cloned my drive but now I am having update issues
Really don't know what possessed Microsoft to go back to locking drives like on the original Xbox. That's incredibly dumb and I really don't think it is even a security measure. It's a straight up anti-repair move.
I'd say for anybody who has the right tools and knowledge it would make a whole lot of sense to backup the Xbox SSD to an image or another drive to keep as a backup.
I'd try a Linux desktop, with a standard ATX mainboard. i'd also try Mac OS X in a 2010 tower with an NVMe card, just in case you can somehow read the card that way.
It sounds like people should get their consoles backed up while they are still in good condition.
That's disgraceful. My PC is on most of the day, most days. The SSD has 83% life left, after 1083 days of constant use.
I am trying to fix my own Series X device. I have diagnosed a short due to a chip called ATMP 155. Any idea what is it and is it easy to find replacement?
Do you think people could possibly find a workaround for the encryption in the future?
MAYBE since new keys are generated during recovery, there may be an undocumented mechanism for entering recovery without valid keys present. Why they wouldn't program their bootrom to check for a recovery USB if no valid keys were found? Well, because the US hasn't a shred of consumer protection law or right to repair legislation- yet.
😂 FIRE! Hope the disk daughter board isn't trashed
Hey, I live in my Sister's basement Sir! Sorry it didn't work. A Fantastic video, and Education. Thank You COD3R! 😁
What about if u put an external one in Will it work?? Or does the internal ones still need to be working??
excellent find sir. i will be contacting trading standards because what these greedy pigs are doing is illegal
Setting-general-power settings
Switch power to shut down rather than sleep.
Why would sleep be the default setting?
Convenience for the tiktok generation with intolerance for waiting 20 seconds for the console to boot.
Self sabotage for max profits
I just want to clean your desk. My OCD is going wild.
Can you clone a working Xbox to another SSD?
A flash SSD *should* go into read-only mode once it fails, unless there's a damage/fault within the chip (it is possible too) - and you should be able to clone it bit-wise to another drive. (Likely why you can get other consoles to work)
Why will this boot when set to US - likely Microsoft has 2 folders in the encrypted partitions, one 'stock' and one 'live'. The live which has the UK (and other settings) might have been corrupted, and the console reverts to the 'stock' when it starts up.
Just as with the PS4 battery draining, causing games not to start unless connected to the internet - I would imagine Microsoft also have to do an update in order to ignore/fix-restore errors in the 1GB partition.
A way to get the console to last longer is *NOT* to fill the entire drive... Delete whatever is not in use, leave +50% free space
Leave the drive as empty as possible, this way the drives firmware does not need to do so many erase cycles when it is managing data storage moving stuff around in order to store small file-writes.
(This is a good advice in general on *all* SSD's and OS's, It also improves speed if/when the partition is near full)
i was thinking the same thing, clone from a good working ssd drive from a friend or something?
so are you saying that where 2 and a half years away from a potential red light of death event again.
Most likely but they'll probably release a new console by then and just tell you to buy the new one
Why is everyone focused on the data loss and not the console bricking? Maybe I am being naive but all your games and saves are on the cloud. You can delete a game, reload it, and your saves come back.
Because of the limitation of USB and the external box you won't be able to access the hidden partition. I remember reading somewhere that a PC with an empty mvme slot it may be possible to recover the hidden partition and then recover it to another mvme ssd.
Wanted to add Xbox added the software key in that partition and when the xbox is powered on it checks that partition and if no key if found it shut down. This is simply their way to control end user from changing the SSD to anything other then official XBOX hardware. They did the same with the add on SSD, but now that is slowly going away, now that the contract is expiring with Seagate. Just another tactic that is being used to control pricing and size limitations.
I install and run everything on/from the Seagate expansion card. Figure that might help.
isn't it possible some components on the motherboard or the ssd controller itself thats failing/killing them? if a new working drive still can't read/write properly then it wasnt just the drive fault.
Sorry to go aganist you opinion Phil, but sony didn't do anything right otherwise they should have make a removable ssd. They both failed on that part, microsoft surely more but even sony isn't that behind it
Sony has been having thousands of critical failures as well. Both are just as bad
I posted a question about this on the Microsoft support page. Hopefully people will see it and realize how big of an issue this is.
Again reads wont affect the drives life only writes will but the downside on these systems are that they are writing data almost constantly during their power on state, you can mitigate it to an extent by turning off the always on state, turning off the constant background video capture and by limiting the use on the drive by using an extrnal ssd drive to store your games.
Possible solution: take your SSD and connect it to a computer then clone your SSD encrypted hardware key partition to another SSD using the UNIX comand DD (any linux live cd can do it and there are tutorials on how to on the internet) after cloning the partition just try a low level format on the old damaged drive just for curiosity (I have recovered functionality of SSDs with an old tool named HDD Guru LLF) Note: a low level format is when you delete all partitions and write the whole raw disk with zeros. if the old SSD is not recovered at least you will have your encrypted hardware key en another drive.
Psu is not pairing to the boards, and the cloning works it just will not connect because the psu is keyed to the boards and has to be changed in the Xbox Xbf file at Microsoft.