General information about the Marvell Van Gogh family

1. Support family series and general information

1.1 Support family series

PC-3000 SSD 2.4.5 as an example, currently supports the following

Marvell VanGogh \ VanGogh 2 family (88SS9174, 88SS9187, 88SS9189, 88SS9190, 88SS1074)

Crucial M4;

Crucial C300;

Crucial C400

Crucial M500

Micron C400;

Micron C300;

Intel 510;

Plextor M3;

Plextor M3 Pro;

Plextor M5S;

Plextor M5 Pro;

Plextor M5 Pro Extreme;

Crucial M550;

Crucial MX100;

Crucial MX200;

Sandisk X300;

Sandisk Ultra II (Including Marvell 88SS1074 modification!);

Sandisk Ultra Plus;

Sandisk Genesis;

Sandisk Vulcan;

Sandisk X110 (M.2 2260)

1.2 General information

1.2.1 General information about the Marvell Van Gogh family

The Marvell Van Gogh drive family series is currently the third generation of SSD products. The first generation includes Crucial C300 and Micron C300; the second generation M4 (C400); the third generation is M500.

All these drives are based on two generations of Marvell controllers: Ð¡300 and M4 (C400) based on Marvell 88SS9174, and M500 based on Marvell 88SS9187.

The controller supports hardware encryption and actively encrypts user data. This means that the controller encrypts user data before saving it to the memory chip. PC-3000 SSD can decrypt and restore part or all of the SSD image files through the factory mode. This method does not need to desolder the NAND flash memory chip.

1.2.2 Drive initialization

Every time Marvell Van Gogh drives are powered up, they need to go through 3 main initialization phases:

1) Load the kernel firmware from the internal ROM of the controller and perform basic initialization.

2) They load the firmware bootloader from the external ROM (NOR flash chip). The purpose of this section is

Initialize the system that has not been initialized in the first stage and load it into memory.

3) Load the main firmware part, load and initialize the service module.

If an error is reported during the period, the function will be restricted.

Drive operation under the control of kernel firmware: In utility programs, this mode is called safe mode. In this mode, the drive will respond to most ATA commands (including the 0xEC command to read the device ID). Only the load firmware command is available. When executed, it loads the firmware into the RAM of the drive and executes it. Generally, when the NOR flash memory chip is damaged and the bootloader program is damaged, the drive is in safe mode.

Drive operation under bootloader control: It is characterized by limited support instructions. At this stage, if the drive returns a specific character string "Micron Loader" when reading the device ID, this type of prompt is most likely to be a damaged or missing firmware module.

In the normal operation mode, the drive usually supports a complete instruction set corresponding to it and returns a standard ID. If an error is encountered during the process, the function will be limited. The most typical is to prompt an abort error when reading or writing data (the Err bit is set in the ATA status register and the Abrt flag is set in the error register).

The factory mode function in this family series is realized in the main firmware. Therefore, the drive must complete the action of loading the firmware. If it is not supported in the BUSY state.

2. Common faults

2.1 An error occurred when reading/writing data

This is one of the most common failures of Marvell Van Gogh SSD. It may be caused by password protection or a damaged firmware module.

Therefore, you must first determine whether the drive is securely locked. To do this, it is enough to read its ID and check the corresponding field value. If the drive is locked, use the unlock function.

If the drive does fail, there may be several options:

Repairing this situation is simple-the utility provides a "low-level formatting" tool. The program will format and initialize the service area of â€‹â€‹the drive. The function will be restored after the low grid.

caveat! Low-level format irreversibly destroys all user data stored in the flash memory chip!

Data Recovery To recover data, you will need a data extractor suite. The utility program provides two methods to read the logical image: read using factory mode instructions and read based on the mapping table. The default program is read using factory mode instructions. The read mode based on the mapping table needs to build the mapping first.

Therefore, to restore data, you must perform the following steps:

1) Start the utility.

2) Select the logical image reading method and construct the mapping.

3) Create a task in the data extractor and start data saving.

Once all the user data is saved, you can follow the above repair method to repair it.

2.2 The capacity is zero

This failure is usually related to the damage of the configuration module. The maintenance method in section 2.1 is also applicable in this case. With one exception,

The read logical image using factory mode instructions is likely to be unavailable. Therefore, to recover data, you will have to use the following process:

1) Start the utility.

2) Build a mapping.

3) Switch the logical image reading mode to reading based on the mapping table.

4) Create a task in the data extractor.

5) Save data.

After restoring user data, you can fix the fault by running "low-level format"

2.3 An error occurred while reading the drive ID

This failure is a typical feature of drives operating under kernel firmware control (safe mode). It is usually because the firmware module stored in the SPI NOR flash memory chip is damaged or related to the failure of the physical chip.

To start such a drive, you must force load the corresponding firmware module, and then the drive will return to normal. The necessary process is as follows:

1) The device ID is not read when starting the utility.

2) Switch the mode to safe mode.

3) Press the "Start" button.

Once the utility is launched, the firmware matching the drive will be loaded to the device. If there are no other problems, the drive will function normally until it is shut down. It needs to be reloaded after power-on again.