Question After overclocking RAM, SSD not booting and showing as empty :(

[wyephani]

Hi,

Recently I purchased GSkill Trident Z RGB 3200MHz (https://www.gskill.com/product/165/...BDDR4-3200MHz-CL16-18-18-38-1.35V16GB-(2x8GB)) by default my Gigabyte AB350m Gaming 3 motherboard set it as 1886MHz and overclocked it to 3200MHz (using Gigabyte Easy Tune) and rebooted. Everything works fine, no issues, no crashes, no temperature hikes etc. The next day when I started my PC it displays "Reboot and select proper boot device" message.

- Verified BIOS settings to make sure my SSD (bootable device where Windows 10 installed) is top at the boot device properties. Not working.

- Reset the BIOS settings to default values (including overclock settings) and try to boot again but no luck.

- I cleared the CMOS with jumper and reset the BIOS settings. Didn't work.

Finally, I boot with USB bootable drive to try to repair my existing windows but not working (in all above cases my SSD detecting and apparently not OS in it).

Tried several times with system repair, system restore all of them showing errors like won't work, system restore not found etc.

Finally, I decided to install fresh install (thought may be important OS files got corrupted when I did overclock) and found out "windows setup" displaying both my hard drives (ssd + hdd) as empty. complete storage as free space ( the one where we see where do you want to install windows stage).

I didn't understand why it showing as empty, how come both drives lost data or is it only display problem.

Any help appreciated, no problem to reinstall windows all are backed up, but my other drive also showing empty and it got me worried.

BIOS Version: F31
CPU: Ryzen 5 1600

Thanks in advance.

 

[helpstar]

maybe by "repairing" you formatted both drives?

Boot with a linux USB flash drive e.g. Mint or Ubuntu and have a look at your drives there

 

[wyephani]

no, not formatted. since, I'm unable to boot I just want to check whether windows recognizes or not ( even though BIOS showing both drives, just want to reconfirm with Windows USB drive ) then I followed steps until the page where it shows all available drives and surprisingly found that both drives showing entire capacity as 'free space', before that I only experimented with BIOS settings and Motherboard connections. Definitely not formatted.

Will try with Linux bootable drive, need to find laptop.

Also, if you know in case if everything fine in that OS, can we fix Windows without fresh install?

 

[Zizo007]

It happened to me when I overclocked my RAM too much. Its because the OS files get corrupted.
Try linux as an earlier member said and try the drives in another PC to see if they are empty.

Otherwise if the files are really important, there is file recovery companies which cost a lot.

 

[zx128k]

When overclocking I have all the test programs on a removable storage device like a usb stick. RAM overclocking I boot to memtest86.

 

[wyephani]

When I overclock my RAM, I'm expected that (worst case scenario) my hard drive may lost some important OS files and I can fix with this bootable OS drive. What bothering now is how it got affected both separate drives (SSD + HDD) ?

Today, I'll try with Ubuntu and check that whether those drives really empty or lost partition or something.

 

[DMAN999]

Just FYI, G.Skill does Not list that RAM kit as compatible with your MB:

RAM Configurator-G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd.

G.SKILL

www.gskill.com

,

I have that same kit in my Ryzen 5 2600, Asus ROG strix B450-F Rig and it works great andOC'sto 3400 but it is also on the G.Skill and Asus compatibility list for my MB.

 

[wyephani]

GSkill doesn't list that RAM in their website, but I already used 8GB earlier with 2666MHz without any issues (almost an year). Then I purchased another 8GB and checked whether it will actually go to 3200MHz or not. The day I changed speed, didn't observed any issues, this all happened the next when I turn on the PC.

Anyway, about not recognizing drives, today I tried with Ubuntu live, and found that it also not showing those drives. Checked with GParted and it is showing both drives as unrecognized disk label, further Googling told me that it is related to "it doesn't contain partition table/type of partition table is not recognized". So, I tried to fix with boot repair,restoring MBR, and also tried with diskpart to restore boot related files. All of them not working, so finally decided to fresh install on SSD, now its booting with all data lost.

After booting Windows, checked that whether it is detecting my other (backup drive) hard disk or not, still same issue. No drive letter assigned to that drive.

I don't want to format this drive too, any tools/software to restore missing headers without loosing data, let me know.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Unolocogringo]

First mixing ram is a crap shoot! even if it is the same brand and part number.
ALWAYS, ALWAYS buy ram in certified kits.
for recovering you files without paying recovery services try Recuva.
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva
You will need another blank hard drive with twice the capacity or more than the hard drive you are trying to recover. It will find files deleted years ago on your drive and needs enough space to write them to.

 

[Zizo007]

Recuva won't detect the hard drive unless he format it.

 

[Unolocogringo]

Recuva won't detect the hard drive unless he format it.

I have used it to recover several hard drives that windows stated was empty with pretty good success.
Although you need to make sure windows has assigned the drive a letter.
If it does not have a drive letter windows nor Recuva can access it.

Edit.
Quick formatting a drive only removes Master File Table entries.A file that states where files are located on the hard drive
A full format removes Master File Table entries and does a bad sector check.
Neither are important to Recuva because it reads the drive as raw, bit by bit, and then it writes full files to the recovery hard drive and tries to process file fragments into full files.
You will not get back everything but you can get back a lot.

 

[wyephani]

I used free partition recovery tools (not sure which one worked but I tried all minitool, free partition recovery and wondershare and also some Ubuntu software tools) which recovered lost master table entries and but due to free version unable to recover data morethan 1GB. I used Ubuntu testdisk utility and retrieved all data (nothing lost, looks like some headers missing and windows showing the drives empty because of that) to another drive and created sample volume again in Windows. Eveything fine now, both drives are healthy (reinstallled OS, softwares etc. that took some time but learned something about overclocking RAM and how it affects all connected hard drives.)

 

[zx128k]

I used free partition recovery tools (not sure which one worked but I tried all minitool, free partition recovery and wondershare and also some Ubuntu software tools) which recovered lost master table entries and but due to free version unable to recover data morethan 1GB. I used Ubuntu testdisk utility and retrieved all data (nothing lost, looks like some headers missing and windows showing the drives empty because of that) to another drive and created sample volume again in Windows. Eveything fine now, both drives are healthy (reinstallled OS, softwares etc. that took some time but learned something about overclocking RAM and how it affects all connected hard drives.)

Boot to a drive you don't care about for tests. Fast USB sticks can be great for this.

 

[wyephani]

thanks, I'll do that. I'm wondering what exactly happened to my hard drives (Googling...) when I overclock my RAM ( I watched some videos on youtube , they've same mobo and cpu ), looks like I missed something. I'll do again with proper system image backup and disconnect other internal hard drives. Any tips?

 

[zx128k]

RAM that is not stable will error like crazy. As RAM is used for almost everything, this can lead to data corruption.