I May Have Just Bricked my 4TB SSD on the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+
I’m hoping someone here has seen this before because I’m completely stuck.
Hardware:
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ (latest BIOS)
WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB
Cloned from the factory SSD using Macrium Reflect
The clone went perfectly. The handheld booted and ran Windows without any issues.
I was trying to troubleshoot the “Failed Attestation” error that was preventing me from playing Call of Duty online, so I went into MSI Click BIOS and enabled Security → User Password.
After saving and rebooting, the handheld never booted into Windows again. Now every startup does the same thing (see attached photo): MSI logo, Immediately followed by a blue firmware box that only displays “WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB”
That’s it. No password prompt, no cursor, no instructions. It just hangs there indefinitely. I cannot even get to the BIOS in this loop on this SSD.
If I remove the SN7100, the Claw boots straight into BIOS with no issues. I reset the BIOS to factory defaults, but the problem comes right back as soon as I reinstall the SSD.
What I’ve tried:
Reset BIOS to defaults
Disabled Fast Boot
Verified Intel VMD is disabled
I also installed the drive in my desktop to test it:
BIOS detects the SN7100 by name.
Windows doesn’t see it at all.
WD Dashboard detects the drive, but every function is disabled.
So the controller seems to be alive, but the drive is basically unusable.
A handful of questions:
- Has anyone seen the Claw BIOS get an NVMe drive stuck in a security/password state?
- Does this sound like a hidden or broken NVMe password prompt?
- Is there any recovery procedure for something like this
- Has anyone recovered a WD SN7100 after this happened?
I’ve opened (or will be opening) tickets with both MSI and Western Digital, but I figured I’d ask here in case someone has run into this before.
For now I’m back on the original factory SSD. 😩
Any help would be greatly appreciated.