u/Greenstone5113

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to figure out whether my NVMe SSD is failing, whether I have a motherboard slot problem, or whether I triggered a firmware issue.

System:

• MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk WiFi
• Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• RTX 3060 12GB
• Windows 11 Pro

Drive:

• Lexar NM620 2TB
• Bought about 3 years ago

What happened:

• I used Lexar’s official Windows firmware updater, and it said the update was successful.
• After that, the system started acting unstable.
• On reboot, the PC sometimes shows a black screen and eventually drops into BIOS.
• BIOS also cannot detect the drive reliably. Sometimes it sees it, sometimes it does not.
• Sometimes when trying to boot Windows, it goes into Windows Recovery because it cannot access the drive or cannot find the boot device.
• In Windows NZXT CAM can no longer communicate properly with my AIO LCD (NZXT Kraken 360).
• In Linux, lsblk once showed the NVMe device as nvme0n1 with 0B size, while the partitions still had normal sizes.
• sudo nvme list sometimes showed nothing at all.
• After reseating the SSD, the drive came back and reported normally again.
• Later, after writing about 130–150 GB during an imaging attempt, the drive disappeared again from lsblk and nvme list.

What I’ve already tried:

• Windows repair install keeping files/apps
• Reseating the RAM
• Reseating the SSD
• Checking CrystalDiskInfo, which showed over 90% health
• Rebooting / power cycling
• Trying Linux for more direct diagnostics

My questions:

1. Does this sound more like a failing SSD, a bad M.2 slot/contact issue, or buggy firmware?
2. Is there any realistic way to recover the data safely if the drive keeps dropping out?
3. Is there a known way to obtain/reflash Lexar NM620 firmware if the updater says I already have the latest version?

Any input is appreciated. I can also post dmesg output or more details if that would help.