Fake SSD Identified. Help me take action!

[HVPD Enterprises]

I recently purchased a used Dell T1650 workstation from Electronic bay .com.

It was advertised as having a Samsung SSD, however Samsung Magician (their SSD software) fails to recognise the drive.

CrystalDiskInfo also showed the serial number as 0s (also visible in screenshot), suggesting that the drive has modded firmware.

I am therefore aware that the drive is fake.

 

What should I do?

 

(Yes, I am aware I have it plugged into a SATA3 Port)

[WereCatf]

3 minutes ago, HVPD Enterprises said:

What should I do?

How about you begin by contacting the seller?

[Stormseeker9]

3gb/s isnt that sata II?

• Id just send the drive back as its obviously fake

[WereCatf]

Just now, Stormseeker9 said:

3gb/s isnt that sata II?

Aye, SATA3 is 6Gbps.

[mariushm]

AHCI mode seems to be deactivated. The drive may run in BIOS in "IDE compatibility mode" or some similarly name feature, which may prevent the driver from sending the SATA commands through which the SATA drive would reply with that information you see in the application. Basically the SATA drive / SATA controller may only pass the commands that were in the IDE set of commands.

 

First thing that you should normally do is to actually open the case of the computer and visually inspect the SSD. Does it look like a Samsung? If you can open the case of the SSD, does it have a Samsung chipset, does it have Samsung memory chips? etc etc

 

If you're not willing to do that, just double check the bios first and see if there's an option to run the SSD in AHCI mode.

 

Note that if you change the mode to AHCI, Windows may crash during boot as it may not have the actual drivers that work in AHCI mode. It used to happen in Windows 7, I don't know if it happens in Windows 10.

 

Note that it's possible they set the mode to compatibility mode to be able to install Windows  because Windows may not have built in drivers for that old chipset.

In this case, you may be able to put the text mode drivers for that sata controller on a usb stick and you may have to reinstall Windows if you're booting from SSD - during start of installation, you may be able to load the driver from USB stick or CD/DVD/whatever.

 

[mariushm]

This seems to be the latest driver which includes AHCI drivers up to WIndows 2008 (should be accepted by windows 10) :

 

https://downloadmirror.intel.com/20110/eng/RST_11.6.0.1030_RAID_AHCI_driver_GUI_CLI_2012.10.11.zip

 

The readme says it contains AHCI drivers for C216 chipset, which your motherboard seems to have.

 

Basically, you would unpack the archive in a folder somewhere, then go in Drivers\f6flpy-x64 (for 64 bit, go to x86 for 32bit Windows drivers) and copy those files on a CD/DVD-RW or a usb stick 

 

I also attached it to this comment : RST_11.6.0.1030_RAID_AHCI_driver_GUI_CLI_2012.10.11.zip

[5x5]

Look at the actual SSD - Magician doesn't recognize OEM drives.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

8 hours ago, mariushm said:

AHCI mode seems to be deactivated. The drive may run in BIOS in "IDE compatibility mode" or some similarly name feature, which may prevent the driver from sending the SATA commands through which the SATA drive would reply with that information you see in the application. Basically the SATA drive / SATA controller may only pass the commands that were in the IDE set of commands.

 

First thing that you should normally do is to actually open the case of the computer and visually inspect the SSD. Does it look like a Samsung? If you can open the case of the SSD, does it have a Samsung chipset, does it have Samsung memory chips? etc etc

 

If you're not willing to do that, just double check the bios first and see if there's an option to run the SSD in AHCI mode.

 

Note that if you change the mode to AHCI, Windows may crash during boot as it may not have the actual drivers that work in AHCI mode. It used to happen in Windows 7, I don't know if it happens in Windows 10.

 

Note that it's possible they set the mode to compatibility mode to be able to install Windows  because Windows may not have built in drivers for that old chipset.

In this case, you may be able to put the text mode drivers for that sata controller on a usb stick and you may have to reinstall Windows if you're booting from SSD - during

start of installation, you may be able to load the driver from USB stick or CD/DVD/whatever.

Spoiler

 

[HVPD Enterprises]

Thank you all for your timely responses. 

 

I will contact the seller thanks to your excellent suggestions.