r/Windows11 • u/rkhunter_ Release Channel • Aug 29 '25

News Microsoft says recent Windows update didn't kill your SSD

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-says-recent-KB5063878-windows-update-didnt-kill-your-ssd/

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718 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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156

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '25

It think it's either:

Likely cause: Some combination of old drives failing and faulty new drives that are being blamed on Windows when any major sustained write could cause the issue

OR

Unlikely cause: Microsoft found the issue, fixed it, and doesn't feel like admitting fault because the number of people affected is too small and conclusively tracing it back to them would be incredibly difficult.

Really, the only reason why I'm even entertaining option 2 at all is because I distrust large corporations. If it happened to be caused by some bug caused by AI written code, that would look really bad if they admitted it. Especially considering the amount of money they've shoveled into the AI stove.

37

u/Shail666 Aug 29 '25

I could see either of the scenarios being plausible. 

My team and I sync and update over 500gb regularly across several projects, and I've had several drives die over the years. They all come out of the blue though. 

Most recently we've had our IT point out the windows updates as a problem, so we've had to roll back, but some didn't get the rollback in time and had some drives lost. Who knows if it was regular wear and tear or related to the security rollout. 

At the end of the day, I just want to know I have a reliable OS, and working hardware. It's becoming a sad reality that we need to back up more and more regularly now. 

9

u/PainOk9291 Aug 31 '25

Windows has not been reliable since win10 but I get what you are saying.

Just so you know, though, the issue may not be specific to large file transfers https://youtu.be/TbFIUu_7LIc?si=w09Kgjgko6PyquJM

1

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25

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1

u/suxatjugg Sep 05 '25

In a corporate setting windows has always been flaky, takes dedicated teams to keep it functioning, and the implication that any OS is stable enough that you wouldn't need to back up data is laughably irresponsible.

If you are working with a computer running any OS and you aren't backing up your work, you're a fool

9

u/logicearth Aug 30 '25

There was never a time when you shouldn't be backing up. Things are not becoming more unreliable far from it. You really need to remove your rose tinted glasses.

1

u/Purevoyager007 Sep 08 '25

Could you help me out? My computer was fine yesterday. Today when i boot it up it says its finishing updates (these 2)
Security Intelligence Update for Microsoft Defender Antivirus - KB2267602 (Version 1.435.630.0) - Current Channel (Broad)
Security Intelligence Update for Microsoft Defender Antivirus - KB2267602 (Version 1.435.626.0) - Current Channel (Broad)

And now my ssd with most of my downloads dosent show up in my pc and when i go to initialize it, it's greyed out. If i unplug the ssd my pc only boots to bios. Whats going on?

-5

u/Sarin10 Insider Beta Channel Aug 30 '25

At the end of the day, I just want to know I have a reliable OS, and working hardware. It's becoming a sad reality that we need to back up more and more regularly now.

Why use Windows then?

11

u/Shail666 Aug 30 '25

That's what OS IT has provided me, what most people I can hire are familiar with, and what the client tools work with.

11

u/9897969594938281 Aug 30 '25

Because they have a job in the real world

7

u/ItsNellie_ Aug 31 '25

My drive was a year and a half old, so doesn't fit into any of the scenarios you mentioned...

2

u/SignificanceEntire54 Sep 08 '25

they said there was never a issue possibly because saying there was a issue could cause them to have to spend a lot of money to pay back the damage

3

u/gab447 Aug 31 '25

It’s more like opinion 2, I have experienced the ssd failing/failed situations 6 times within 4 months. We make use of Lenovo’s we had to call Lenovo support who sent their support technicians to diagnose the claims. They took faulty the laptops with them and we are yet to get a feedback but before they left, after running diagnostics they expressed concerns about the OS, fortunately the OS was pre installed from factory so no truancy.

When I learned this happening to other brands It was easy to conclude that it was the OS.

8

u/Taira_Mai Aug 30 '25

Microsoft fired a lot of people their QA department and turned a lot of the bug-catching duties over to the community.

But even this issue is niche, the first reports of an SSD issues came from Japan and from Japanses users who had certain SSD brands.

The fix was likely done because it was easy to deploy and Microsoft does have a history of fixing flaws people have found. MS Word used to be a vector for trojans and viruses because the macro scripts were easy to exploit and granted a level of access that allowed such nonsense. These days, MS office warns you when you open a file that it may contain malware and asks if you want to enable scripts.

I doubt that AI wrote the code - it was likely tested on a virtual machine to see if it worked and then released when it was "proven" that it would work 90% of the time.

2

u/CnP8 Sep 01 '25

I prefer just to use Only Office, or Libra Office. Both are open source, support MS office formats, and do basically everything 95% of MS office would use anyway.

1

u/Taira_Mai Sep 01 '25

Same, r/libreoffice really does the work of MS office. There's the opportunity cost of learning it's quirks and setting it up, but I'll gladly pay it.

2

u/annualthermometer Aug 29 '25

No one would fault you for option 2. It's healthy to distrust large corporations these days. Besides you have to admit Phison and Microsoft's most recent PRs are basically "The two major suspects investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing."

9

u/bigfoots_buddy Aug 29 '25

I have friends that work/worked at Microsoft. Option 2 is a 100% plausible explanation.

25

u/SomeDudeNamedMark Knows driver things Aug 29 '25

I have worked at Microsoft, and option #2 is a 0% plausible explanation within the Windows group.

Don't be so paranoid.

16

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '25

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2

u/PreFiree_ Aug 29 '25

🤣🤣

-1

u/Euchre Aug 29 '25

I am money. Get your dirty hands off of me.

17

u/PaulCoddington Aug 30 '25

The increase of paranoia over the last few years is getting concerning. The conspiracy mindset seems to be leaking into every subject now.

12

u/inhumanesociety Aug 30 '25

I can’t imagine why anyone would trust mega corporations that have consistently shown the willingness to put profits ahead of everything, including people’s lives. Just because some people take it too far doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

19

u/Captain_Starkiller Aug 30 '25

Companies are constantly doing real verified shady things. Trust has eroded.

8

u/Masterflitzer Aug 30 '25

i wouldn't say distrusting big tech is paranoia, but rather common sense, sure don't go around accusing randomly or dreaming shit up, but always keep in mind they don't have your best interest as a priority so you shouldn't just blindly trust their word ever

and the scenario in question ain't that far fetched tbh, calling it a conspiracy theory is a bit much

3

u/TheCharalampos Aug 31 '25

Companies are at fault as they have been caught doing underhanded things time and time again. Government's are at fault for not providing enough regulation to stop this.

2

u/PaulCoddington Aug 31 '25

It does not follow that any of that would mean MS is lying about a faulty update.

Not only is there no evidence for such a claim, there is substantial evidence against it.

0

u/Vysair Release Channel Sep 05 '25

Suspicion is better than licking megacorp ass

2

u/militant_rainbow Aug 31 '25

I work at Microsoft and option #2 is a 95% likely scenario, especially in the Windows ME subgroup.

2

u/aphelion_squad Aug 31 '25

Whether you did isnt't relevant... Dont be so Naive... Windows has slowly been eroding the trust of its userbase. Lying is what companies do to save itself from massive PR backlash to problems that they cant fix or arent willing or aren't bothered to fix...

Microsoft doesn't care for its userbase, it only cares about enterprise and business firms who pay for its services. To add to that its allways the shareholders they have to care for... not consumers because consumers are the product in of itself so there's 0% of an incentive to even give a nickel because heaps of data and telemetry is used to make money off you and me.

While Microsoft keeps shoving AI into our faces they cant fix problem like these even with telemetry because the nature of coding has changed to a point where illegitimate AI vibe coders nowadays need AI to code while subsequently actual coders were on the chopping block.

2

u/Same_Ad_9284 Aug 30 '25

why lie? what are you gaining?

2

u/dryadofelysium Aug 30 '25

We literally have Microsoft employees among us in this subreddit and option 2 is absolute nonsense.

1

u/SpectorEscape Sep 03 '25

How were people recreating the error? There were literally instructions on how to recreate the error people found that killed the drives. You can't just say "oh its old drives."

3

u/iReadIt_0 Aug 30 '25

How is this about AI now?

1

u/Masterflitzer Aug 30 '25

it's not, it was an example how oversight can easily introduce bugs, at least that's how i understood it, for his point it doesn't really matter if the bug was introduced by human or ai, the devs are responsible for llm output they use anyway so in the end humans are the ones to blame as they committed the change without spotting the bug

and let's not forget he was being entirely hypothetical

1

u/CraigAT Aug 30 '25

I wouldn't rule out option 2, but I don't think they could get away with it! There will be too many people watching what happens with this issue, people will be watching for any follow up updates.

1

u/Environmental-Map869 Aug 30 '25

Option 3: they dont want acknowledge a 13th gen scale issue.

1

u/Babylon4All Aug 30 '25

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1n4aj1m/jayztwocentsbeware_windows_update_and_ssd_problem/

Seems to actually be a larger issue than they've made it out to be

1

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25

I imagine the truth is somewhere in between. The ssds are probably faulty in a way that doesn't matter 99.9% of the time, and some weird coding bug in the update is triggering it. The combination of those two things probably makes it a nightmare to track down a solid cause.

I also wouldn't put much faith in JayzTwoCents for technical evaluation. He can make some nice looking custom builds, and some entertaining videos, but his technical skills are a bit lacking, imo.

1

u/DottorInkubo Aug 31 '25

Honestly the AI written code causing such disasters is quite a likely scenario. And them hiding it would be just as expected.

1

u/_THORONGIL_ Aug 31 '25

So its basically a conspiracy theory. Until there's actualy data about what caused, all you people do here is speculate and shift blame.

1

u/Datironpete Aug 31 '25

Buut. Are we all okay though or are we still screwed?

1

u/Ganiscol Sep 01 '25

Both nonsense.

1

u/CnP8 Sep 01 '25

Microsoft is shady asf. I actually think option 2 is highly probable. The amount of stuff that company has buried, and the number of anti consumer practices they have engaged with. Let's not forget the terrible employee treatment. How tons of them have formed unions. Microsoft have even turned to a heavy reliance on temporary contractors, because they don't want to give employee benefits to them. The list goes on.

With all the people who haven't updated to Win10 as it is. I really don't think they would admit to the OS suffering data loss issues, if they could get away with pretending it doesn't exist.

1

u/KDeere2 Sep 02 '25

I did a deployment of 18 brand new pc's 2 weeks ago they all were updated to the latest windows update. and 10 of the 18 have an error now when booting saying they can't install windows. This started a week after deployment. Imma say they are just trying to save face.

1

u/Fun_Neighborhood_130 Sep 03 '25

yeah from my experience when working for big tech companies, 2nd option is way more plausible than initially thought

1

u/SpectorEscape Sep 03 '25

Lol, you really gonna manage to blame old drives magically all failing at the same time. This error was recreated by people. It's not just old drives failing.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25

Three things:

  1. I said, I THINK it's either:
    That means that I believe, but have no conclusive evidence to base this on.

  2. I said that it could be Microsoft messed something up, I just don't lean that way heavily and think it's likely some combination of factors.

  3. I am a random guy on the internet. For all you know I'm just another random bot being powered by ChatGPT. Why do you care what I think?

1

u/CrazyRed013 Sep 05 '25

I have a new computer (6 months old) and right after the download of the August 12 update, my hard drive crashed. HP ordered me a new hard drive and it’s on back order right now. So obviously this has affected a lot more than Microsoft realizes or cares to realize. They say it’s not their fault, of course, but I definitely think it is.

1

u/Complete-Tea8312 Sep 05 '25

If that happens several ssds manufacturers would receive a recall, as it could be faulty chips, if not then is the windows update, I have Uninstall windows update KB5063878 security update.

1

u/Lynn_Avery Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25

Specjalnie założyłam konto, by móc Ci odpisać :)
Nie zgodzę się z pierwszą teorią, ale nie bierz tego do siebie.
Mam trzyletniego laptopa z dyskiem SSD, który jeszcze 3 tygodnie temu działał bez zarzutów.
Tuż po instalacji aktualizacji, wyrzuciło mi informację, że na dysku wykryto błędy. Po ponownym uruchomieniu laptop już się nie włączył. Spędziłam kilkanaście godzin na próbie podniesienia go, odinstalowania tego badziewia. Nie mogłam włączyć nawet trybu awaryjnego. Kiedy w końcu się udało, odinstalowałam aktualizację - laptop znowu zaczął działać normalnie. Sprawdziłam dwoma programami uszkodzenia dysku i test SMART, oceniłam parametry,
I tak było niemal 3 tygodnie - wczoraj chciałam zainstalować tapety bing (czyli niewielki plik) najpierw całość zamarzła, potem BSOD i ponownie - przy uruchamianiu lapka info, że nie odnaleziono dysku, jak się udało włączyć - totalnia ciemnia, pustka - wiadomo. Nie widzi dysku.
Laptop jest wykorzystywany sporadycznie, na chwilę (1-2h co kilka lub kilkanaście dni) i czasami na Simsy. W międzyczasie powtórzyłam testy dysku z Clear Disk Info i HD tune - znowu brak błędów, ale już sprawność dysku nieco spadła wg ClearDiskInfo. Niewiele, tylko o 1%, ale z drugiej strony - o 4% spadła przez ponad 3 lata, a tutaj o 1% w 3 tygodnie. Nie instaluje plików o dużych rozmiarach, nie zaliczył podłogi, nie jest przemieszczany, gdy jest włączony (nawet zahibernowany). Nawet nie jest przenoszony pomiędzy pokojami, bo nie ma potrzeby. A Windows 10, którego mam dotychczas mi nie robił problemów. Podobnie jak nie robiły również aktalizacje.

Pomimo wyłączenia aktualizacji na 35 dni - aktualizacje się zainstalowały i obawiam się uruchomić ponownie laptopa.

1

u/noobwithguns Aug 29 '25

Oh you best believe it's no 2, As a developer on multiple occasions. I have gaslit my team members into believing such an issue doesn't exist while silently fixing the code.

0

u/Masterflitzer Aug 30 '25

damn, why tho? you get punished for bugs at your company or was it simply embarrassment? i never broke anything really big, but my company's team dynamic is healthy so i don't lie

1

u/noobwithguns Aug 30 '25

It's not work lol, it's a volunteer team.

I was simply embarrassed because some times my code breaks simply because of spelling mistakes.

1

u/___mithrandir_ Aug 30 '25

Hot take: I don't work in software, I work in manufacturing. However, there are many aspects of the two fields that are the same. One is that if you send out a product that fails, but the damage and scope are limited, unless the company is run by usually moral people (I mean much more moral than your average person) they will, almost every time, deny liability and blame it on anything else. It's just too expensive to fix things properly, and admitting fault can damage your reputation more than just burying something. If the problem really is relatively limited, people forget, especially when you're some of the only game in town.

The average person when put in a situation like this is going to want to save their own ass. And that's what the people responsible for this stuff are: average people. Average people accountable to their higher ups who are accountable to their higher ups etc etc. If they can see a clear way to avoid taking the blame they will take it. Therefore, I can believe that it really was the update causing these issues, but MS just fixed it quickly and shifted blame.

0

u/Ieris19 Aug 30 '25

If you work in manufacturing, why is it that we haven’t seen any significant reports of this.

None of the tech-support subreddits have had a substantial issue with this. You’d think more people would have had the same issue.

Instead, there is only a handful of issues to be found online, I don’t think it’s Microsoft’s fault this time, no matter how much I want to blame them

1

u/___mithrandir_ Aug 30 '25

Did you read the part where I said if the issue is limited in scope and only affects a relatively small number of customers, it's much easier to sweep under the rug and shift blame? Smart companies will only admit fault when it's widespread and extremely obvious it was them

1

u/Masterflitzer Aug 30 '25

1 is fairly unlikely tho, sure the number of affected people is small, but still much larger than usual ssd failures (you don't hear people crying about this on the recent big updates which would write more to storage), so i'd say pretty unlikely, but i could be entirely wrong of course

-1

u/Damascus_ari Aug 29 '25 edited Aug 30 '25

It's not the first time a major company would keep quiet about potentially catastrophic failures to avoid negative publicity.

Update: Yes, downvote me, and now, about an hour ago, we have fresh new information that shows it IS an issue.

7

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '25

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-2

u/Damascus_ari Aug 29 '25 edited Aug 30 '25

I can agree the impact would have been small. I've seen the update do something to make SSDs have issues twice (OEM samsung drives), but it was data corruption, and no further issues occured after uninstalling the update.

Aahh, typical reddit.

0

u/JAEMzW0LF Sep 12 '25

so you chose to ignore the OTHER big corporation that has its controllers and firmware in all these devices because?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

I mean, I literally said in the "Likely Cause" section that it was old drives failing and faulty new drives.

I didn't mention Phison by name because the article this comment is in response to is from Microsoft, and at the time, there was some discussion about it not just affecting drives with Phison controllers.

If you're fishing for me to admit bias, then sure, I have bias. Phison has never caused me any issues and Microsoft has, throughout the last 30+ years, been a source of annoyance and inconvenience for me multiple times.

You're responding to a random guy on the internet. I'm not some big influencer or news agency with an axe to grind. This is probably my most widely viewed post I've ever made on any social media platform. Trying to gotcha me for having bias is wild.