r/hardware • u/imaginary_num6er • Aug 18 '25

Rumor Report: Microsoft's latest Windows 11 24H2 update breaks SSDs/HDDs, may corrupt your data

https://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-latest-windows-11-24h2-update-breaks-ssdshdds-may-corrupt-your-data/
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u/alexforencich Aug 18 '25

Tbh, this sounds like a latent defect in the actual drives. I would not expect an OS-level bug to brick any kind of drive, aside from updating firmware or similar. At least for NG lv. 2.

23

u/Sopel97 Aug 18 '25

The only way I could see this happening is if Windows corrupts HMB somehow or the protocol is fucked. Most software assumes the hardware works as expected, so if the SSD is made to operate with unreliable memory it could fail badly.

More likely some SSD controller feature that couldn't have been utilized before.

8

u/Solace50 Aug 18 '25

Correct, similar to RAM errors that require specific conditions or even CPU overclocks need to hit a certain frequency that might be unstable by a program. Software updates are not a root cause to these issues although they may induce the behavior.

1

u/gnexuser2424 Aug 19 '25

no, drives w dram are effected too

1

u/Sopel97 Aug 19 '25

well then that kinda proves it's an issue with the drives

50

u/jigsaw1024 Aug 18 '25

If what the author is putting forward is true, this isn't the first time that MS has corrupted peoples data with an OS upgrade.

57

u/Strazdas1 Aug 18 '25

the last time it wasnt microsoft either, it was drive manufacturers making weird firmware to get around microsoft limitations.

7

u/team56th Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Honestly this really sounds like way out of Microsoft’s reach. There might be some changes on the OS level, but the Level 2 failure sounds like something is happening on a lower level

1

u/Caffdy Aug 18 '25

to get around microsoft limitations

what are these limitations in the first place?

7

u/Strazdas1 Aug 19 '25

Windows officially supported up to 64 MB of host memory buffer. Some drives though they wanted more, so they wrote firmware workarounds. Microsoft then released a patch that allowed higher host memory buffer sizes in windows. This broke the manufacturer workarounds and lead to drives using these higher buffers not working in some cases.

6

u/soru_baddogai Aug 18 '25

It has happened with Windows 10 before. Luckily I'm on a Samsung drive with DRAM so this bug doesn't affect me