"I/O device error." Unable to Create Partition Table

[diiPex]

This problem has me at the end of my wits, so buckle up, because I'm starting from the begging... (tl;dr at the bottom)

 

Chapter 1: Calm before the storm...

It all began when I was trying to upgrade to windows 10. The manual installer refused to work, and the problem appeared to be because I didn't have all windows updates installed.  The issue is, when I attempted to install the updates, the system would reboot and give me the error: "We couldn't complete the updates, undoing changes." So I installed the updates one by one, and the problem child appeared to be update KB2976978, which gave me the error code 800F0922. I did some research and tried various fixes, but to no avail, the update would not install. 

 

Chapter 2: Into the rabbit hole...

One of the fixes I read about was to expand the System Reserve partition; so I did. I shrunk my main partition, making sure there was enough space, and expanded the System Reserve partition by 100MB, but, alas, my problem was not resolved. Another fix I read about was to uninstall the problem update before attempting to install it. This didn't make sense to me as it shouldn't be already installed, but I checked, and there it was. So I uninstalled KB2976978, as well as the update responsible for the "Get Windows 10" App since it couldn't hurt (or so I thought)  and restarted my computer. 

 

Chapter 3: Chaos...

When my computer rebooted windows was missing the "Get Windows 10" App and reported 3 missing updates, the two I uninstalled, plus one extra. I installed the updates and, once again, error code 800F0922. It is at this point I noticed a notification saying that windows needed to run a disk check, so I clicked it and my C drive usage spiked to 100%, my computer slowed down to the point of freezing, and I decided to restart...

A disk read error occurred

Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart

The point of no return, every time I reboot I get this error. I ran one pass of a memory test which found no errors, but I had run multiple passes in the past. Nothing I tried could fix it, so I decided Fuck It I'll reinstall windows. I popped in my windows 8 installation disk and it gets stuck on the loading screen with the windows logo for 30 minutes, then when it finished and I select a language, it gets stuck once again, this time with just a purple screen and a cursor. I left it like this all night, but never got past this screen. I thought it might have been the disk, so I created a bootable usb with windows 8.1 installation media, but it gave the same problem. At this point things get fishy, I unplug my C drive, a 128 GB Plextor m5p, and windows installation works flawlessly, both the cd and the usb, but how am I supposed to install windows without a drive? 

 

Chapter 4: It's Alive?...

At this point I'm certain it's a problem with the drive, so I load up Hiren's Boot CD and attempt to boot into Mini Windows XP, but after the splash screen, it freezes at the windows desktop; just a cursor and a colorful background. So once again I unplug my C drive, boot back into Mini XP, and, surprise surprise, it loads fine. It seems my SSD is blocking anything related to windows. The next thing I try is Parted Magic, a Linux recovery distro, and it mounts the drive just fine, all its files are there, and everything's looking spic and span. I move all important data onto another hard drive, and now it's time to kill it with fire. I load up Disk Eraser and start the process of doing a secure erase on the faulty drive. Normally it takes a few seconds to a couple minutes to secure erase an SSD, but for me it took nearly an hour, and when I rebooted, nothing had been erased. I tried again, this time running all the commands manually from terminal. It took over thirty minutes, but this time at least it seemed to have cleared the drive. I say seemed because I can't actually mount the drive, and when I open GParted to create a partition table it gives me "Input/output error during read on /dev/sdc". The good news is that windows installation will now run, but it gives me an error when trying to create a new partition. I also get an error when creating a partition from cmd: "DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

 

Chapter 5: Help...

I have no idea where to go from here, and was hoping to get some advice before I trash my ssd. Sorry for the novel, but this is my last resort and I really wanted to make sure I got it all down in case one of you see something I don't. Thanks in advance, I appreciate any help I can get.

 

TL;DR: 

A wiped ssd giving I/O errors when creating partition table with GParted, and when creating partitions with windows installation media.

 

Edit: So as it turns out the I/O Errors I was getting was because the drive was locked. So I unlocked the drive and disabled security with hdparm and lo and behold, the drive wasn't even cleared. Back to square one. 

Edit2: Disk is unlocked but I can't access it. When I try to reformat I get I/O Errors. 

Edit3: Ended up just buying a new SSD. Not worth the trouble.

[doublehelix]

so currently you have no OS on the SSD? try booting into a live media and reformating the SSD.

[diiPex]

So as it turns out the I/O Errors I was getting was because the drive was locked. So I unlocked the drive and disabled security with hdparm and lo and behold, the drive wasn't even cleared. 

 

so currently you have no OS on the SSD? try booting into a live media and reformating the SSD.

Turns out there is an OS on the SSD, but it doesn't boot. I'll give that a shot, what's the best way to reformat considering the only thing I can access is linux.

EDIT: Attempted to reformat with GParted but I get an I/O error when I try to delete a partition. 

[diiPex]

Update: I plugged the SSD into my brothers computer and windows recognized it, but as soon as you click on it or try to access it in any way (including `list disk` from diskpart) it freezes the program that tried to access it, that is until you unplug the SSD, at which point things function as normal. Could I have bricked my SSD? Would flashing its firmware help (its currently running 1.01)? Should I RMA it? 

 

It's been three days since my problems began, I'm starting to get tech withdrawal. Probably just going to purchase a new SSD if I can't solve this.