Question A suspicious drive that won't format ?

[neilhodgkinson]

I built a new PC.

Mobo: Gigabyte B650 UD AX
CPU: Ryzen 5 7600
GPU: Geforce RTX 5060 Ti
RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 (2 x 16GB)
SSD: Kingston M.2 PCIe 4

I booted into Windows11.
I tried to clone my new install onto a new M.2 SSD installed on the motherboard.
It failed to boot, could see it but not boot from it.
Did a fresh install from USB to another SSD.
Windows up and running, updated all the drivers. Everything I can think of; updated.

Thought I’d try again, so tried to reformat the M.2, the one with all the partitions and the unbootable Windows. I cannot format this drive, tried through Windows, tried through Disk Management, tried through command prompt but It’s always just the same partitioned Windows mess in disk utility after.

What am I missing?
I could try again to clone my C drive over to the M.2 but I’m worried there’s a problem I’m not understanding and it’ll be the same fail again.

Any advice welcome.

 

[USAFRet]

Did you try a simple Windows install on this problematic drive?

 

[COLGeek]

What did you use to clone the SSD?

 

[neilhodgkinson]

To be clear Win11 always says it’s done the job, no failures or error codes.
File explorer sees an empty single formatted drive but disk Utility sees all the named partitions?

450MB recovery partition, 100MB EFI system partition, 930.44GB NTFS Basic data partition, 532MB recovery partition.

Is this normal? Has the SSD been formatted?

 

[neilhodgkinson]

In the original failed clone i used Diskgenius

I've not tried an install of windows onto the problem SSD, Is that the next move? If so, what method of install would you advise? From the bootable USB?

 

[USAFRet]

In the original failed clone i used Diskgenius

I've not tried an install of windows onto the problem SSD, Is that the next move? If so, what method of install would you advise? From the bootable USB?

Just to (possibly) verify the drive and/or port is viable.

How To - Windows 11 clean install tutorial

Windows 11 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows 11, version 23H2 or newer but can be equally applied to earlier versions which may have some basic differences in the screens you see but will largely remain similar in...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[neilhodgkinson]

The drive is visible in Files, in Disk Utility and was before in the BIOS boot menu, just wouldn't boot.
It is and always has been visible and in files looks like it is formatted and ready to go but in Disk Utility it still reads with all it’s old partitions.

I’ll try a clean install of Win11. I was just confused and worried by it’s failure to format according to DiskU.

 

[USAFRet]

The drive is visible in Files, in Disk Utility and was before in the BIOS boot menu, just wouldn't boot.
It is and always has been visible and in files looks like it is formatted and ready to go but in Disk Utility it still reads with all it’s old partitions.

I’ll try a clean install of Win11. I was just confused and worried by it’s failure to format according to DiskU.

And do this install with ONLY this drive connected.
Physically disconnect all others.

 

[neilhodgkinson]

All others disconnected, Partitions still there, so manually went in and deleted the partitions in the installer. It’s off and at it now.

 

[Misgar]

450MB recovery partition, 100MB EFI system partition, 930.44GB NTFS Basic data partition, 532MB recovery partition.

It's more normal to have only one Recovery partition, but I think I've occasionally seen two, like your drive.

What seems to be missing is the tiny 16MB partition found on GPT drives. The lack of a 16MB GPT partition implies you're using the older MBR (Master Boot Record), just like this ancient i7-4770K I'm using at this instant.

You can use either format, but MBR allows only 4 Primary partitions and drives up to 2TB. GPT has fewer restrictions, allows more than 4 partitions and drives over 2TB.

When you format a drive, you're often asked if you want to use MBR or GPT:
https://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

When it comes to erasing partitions if you want to re-use a drive and install a fresh copy of Windows, it can be tricky to delete the 16MB GPT partition using Windows Disk Management (assuming you've booted from another drive). I use Easus Partition Master in such instances.

The easiest option is to select and delete all existing partitions using the utility built into the Windows install program. The menu looks something like this:

Select Custom: Install Windows only (advanced). N.B. This erases all the old data on the drive. Backup important data.

The next menu shows the existing partitions and allows you to delete them all, one at a time. Note the 16MB partition marked MSR (Reserved) which imples a GPT drive. Also note there is only one Recovery partition.
https://www.guidingtech.com/how-to-clean-install-windows-11/

When installing Windows, temporarily disconnect all other drives, to avoid problems with the placement of the boot partition.

Similarly, when cloning drives, disconnect the original (source) drive after cloning and before booting up from the cloned (destination) drive the first time. Failure to observe this precaution may leave the system with the boot partition on the old drive being used to start Windows on the new drive.

You may only notice this error when you disconnect the original drive and find the new drive no longer boots into Windows, despite having its own (cloned) boot partition. The system is still looking for the boot partition on the old drive which you've disconnected.

This might explain why your drive isn't booting if you've cloned it at some point, or if you had more than one SSD connected to the system when installing Windows.

Disconnect/unplug all drives apart from the one where you want to install Windows. You can plug all the other drives back in, after booting into the new drive for the first time.

It's probably best to use GPT these days (not MBR) even on drives of 2TB or less. If your SSD doesn't have a 16MB partition, it's probably the older MBR format. As mentioned earlier, MBR is limited to 4 Primary partitions.

I have an old HP laptop running Windows 10 and it came with at least 6 partitions, including a special hidden partition created by HP. I assume it was formatted GPT. When I reinstalled Windows, I got rid of the HP partition because I wasn't concerned about returning it to factory default, plus it wasted GB of space on a small SSD.