Reports of a Windows Update bricking SSDs got the Internet in a tizzy, and we investigate.
You may have seen reports on a particularly troubling bit of news doing the rounds, about the recent KB5063878 Windows 11 security update causing multiple types of SSD data corruption, up to and including the operating system not being detected upon rebooting. We’re happy to report that there’s probably not much to worry about. for now.
The data loss tale came in from X user @Necoru_cat, who witnessed their PC crashing when installing a Steam update for Cyberpunk 2077. According to Necoru, the operating system didn’t come back, and the data on the drive was corrupted. Subsequent tests led to the data on the drive being unrecoverable by standard means, as the partition table eventually got corrupted, leaving the PC in a non-bootable state.
Necoru states that a sequential file transfer of 50 GB of more is enough to trigger the issue and believes this issue is related to the KB5063878 update, though we didn’t spot anything to establish that exact connection. Although there’s some speculation online about actual bricked SSDs, none of Necoru’s report indicate that was the case — merely that the data got corrupted, and the drives are otherwise fine.
