Laptop operating crashes for no apparent reason

[techieNN]

Hello HP Fundi's. I have a client's laptop with a peculiar issue. The hard disk was replaced with an SSD recently and less than a week later he brought it in reporting that the operating system crashed while he was formatting his external drive. The partition had been resized to 90gigs (from 240gigs) and the user profile was gone. At first I believed it to have been caused by user error. I formatted and reloaded the laptop. Not long after, he brought the laptop in with the same issue, now experienced after a power out. Same deal: Hard disk partition resized to 90gigs and the user profile missing. No data to recover. I noticed in both instances the local root directory had acquired an "RM" folder and a "CTOERROR.flg" file. It is almost as if a factory recovery initiated and did not complete, which would be weird since the SSD was loaded clean both times and a factory recovery partition was not set up at all. This is only a guess though, based on the flg file. I may be wrong, but more experienced eyes will know for sure. Below is the contents of the flg file created:

"[ 7:10:04.10][CreateE.cmd] **************************************************
[ 7:10:04.12][CreateE.cmd] [C:\SYSTEM.SAV\FactoryUpdate\CreateE.cmd] has started...
[ 7:10:04.13][CreateE.cmd] --------------------------------------------------
[ 7:10:04.13][CreateE.cmd] Start CreatE.cmd at FactoryUpdate... PASS2
[ 7:10:04.15][CreateE.cmd] --------------------------------------------------
[ 7:10:04.16][CreateE.cmd] Create ["C:\system.sav\CreateE.cmd.FAILURE.flg"]...
[ 7:10:04.18][CreateE.cmd]
[ 7:10:04.20][CreateE.cmd]
[ 7:10:04.21][CreateE.cmd]
[ 7:10:04.23][CreateE.cmd] ************************************************************
[ 7:10:04.23][CreateE.cmd] ************************************************************
[ 7:10:04.37][CreateE.cmd] ************************************************************
[ 7:10:04.38][CreateE.cmd] ************************************************************
[ 7:10:04.40][CreateE.cmd]
[ 7:10:04.40][CreateE.cmd] run [DiskPart.exe /s C:\System.sav\FactoryUpdate\dummy.txt]
[ 7:10:04.77][CreateE.cmd] --------------------------------------------------
[ 7:10:04.79][CreateE.cmd] [CreateDESP.txt]
[ 7:10:04.80][CreateE.cmd] --------------------------------------------------
[ 7:10:04.80][CreateE.cmd] --------------------------------------------------
[ 7:10:04.82][CreateE.cmd]
[ 7:10:04.84][CreateE.cmd] run DiskPart.exe /s C:\System.sav\FactoryUpdate\CreateDESP.txt
[ 7:10:05.46][CreateE.cmd] ErrorLevel=[-2147024809]
[ 7:10:05.46][CreateE.cmd]
[ 7:10:05.48][CreateE.cmd] [PIN_ERROR_MSG][CreateE.cmd] DiskPart.exe /s C:\System.sav\FactoryUpdate\CreateDESP.txt or DiskPart.exe /s C:\System.sav\FactoryUpdate\CreateESP.txt
[ 7:10:05.49][CreateE.cmd] [PIN_ERROR_MSG][CreateE.cmd] Return Code = [-2147024809]
[ 7:10:05.51][CreateE.cmd] FAILED to create ESP/MSR.
[ 7:10:05.51][CreateE.cmd]
[ 7:10:05.53][CreateE.cmd] RESULT=FAILED
[ 7:10:05.54][CreateE.cmd]
[ 7:10:05.56][CreateE.cmd] --------------------------------------------------
[ 7:10:05.57][CreateE.cmd] [CreateE.cmd] has completed...
[ 7:10:05.59][CreateE.cmd] ************************************************** "

I cloned the hard drive before reloading the second time. My hope is to pinpoint the cause of the issue. If there is anyone who can assist me, I would appreciate it greatly. Thanks in advance. 

[techieNN]

So it turns out the SSD had a fault on it. I suspect that was the root cause of the issues, but only time will tell.