Microsoft says recent Windows update didn’t kill your SSD
Confusion remains though, as reports of drive failures continue to circulate - with Microsoft unable to establish a root cause.
Published on 2nd September 2025
Microsoft has found no link between the August 2025 KB5063878 security update and customer reports of failure and data corruption issues affecting solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs).
Microsoft first said last week that it was aware of users reporting SSD failures after installing this month’s Windows 11 24H2 security update.
In a subsequent service alert, Microsoft said that it was unable to reproduce the issue on up-to-date systems and began collecting user reports with additional details from those affected.
“After thorough investigation, Microsoft has found no connection between the August 2025 Windows security update and the types of hard drive failures reported on social media,” Microsoft said in an update to the service alert this week.
“As always, we continue to monitor feedback after the release of every Windows update, and will investigate any future reports.”
The company has also worked with storage device partners to reproduce the issue, but noted that neither telemetry nor internal testing has revealed an increase in disk failures or file corruption after installing this month’s Windows 11 24H2 security update.
Multiple hard drive models reportedly impacted
This issue was first reported last week by Japanese users who experienced SSD issues during heavy write operations (like writing large files or many files at once) to drives that were over 60% full on devices with this month’s Windows 11 24H2 security update installed.
Others have also encountered the same issue on systems with Corsair Force MP600, Maxio SSD, SanDisk Extreme Pro, Kioxia Exceria Plus G4, Kioxia M.2, and other drives with InnoGrit and Phison controllers.
According to reports from affected users, while some of the impacted drives got revived after restarting the computer, the rest remained inaccessible even after a system reboot.
A spokesperson for NAND controller maker Phison said that the company was “working with Microsoft to resolve the issue.”
“We understand the disruption this may have caused and promptly engaged industry stakeholders. [..] At this time, the controllers that may have been affected are under review and we are working with partners,” the spokesperson said.
Until the root cause behind this issue is found and addressed, Windows 11 users with hard drives that are over 60% full are advised to avoid downloading, copying, or writing large files (tens of gigabytes).
