AsRock sees SSD, won't boot from it

[Peanuts1103]

Hey guys, I'm sorry if this is a duplicate topic but I am yet to find an answer that works for me.

My situation: I've been running with a 250gb Samsung Evo SSD and a 2tb Western Digital HDD for a while now. It was working fine, windows is installed on the SSD, but then suddenly a week ago it just wouldn't boot. I went into the bios and my SSD wasn't listed as a boot device anymore!

I've tried enabling and disabling the CSM, I've swapped the sata cables around (might've found a dodgy cable that caused the problem but replacing it didn't help), checked if it would recognise USB (it did) or my SSD in another sata port (it won't)... Cut the power (for a whole week in fact, I'm only home at the weekends these days), still nothing. If I just hook up the SSD and disconnect everything else, it doesn't matter which slot I try it'll list my SSD as a drive (on the Storage configuration / System browser) but it won't show it as a boot option.

I'm really stumped here, really hoping you guys can help! As some extra info; I'm running:
AsRock Z97 Extreme6/3.1
Samsung SSD 850 EVO
(No idea if important but hey why not
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X 8gb (newest piece of hardware I installed, but has been working fine)
Intel Core i7-4790k

Ehm I think those last two are already irrelevant but rather give too much information than too little... If there's any other information you need, let me know.

Kindly

 

[CountMike]

If it's UEFI system it will not show as boot drive if EFI partition on disk is missing/corrupted.

 

[Peanuts1103]

If it's UEFI system it will not show as boot drive if EFI partition on disk is missing/corrupted.

Hey CountMike, thanks for replying!! I am afraid my knowledge doesn't run that deep, is there any way you could elaborate? Anything I could do to check for this, and / or fix it? Thanks!

 

[CountMike]

UEFI bios looks for a (U)EFI partition on the system disk, if it doesn't find it it won't show it as bootable device.
Install it inside as only disk and BOOT from windows installation disk/usb, try choosing Repair option. Otherwise you may have to reinstall windows.

 

[Peanuts1103]

Thank you, I'll try to get my hands on a bootable USB and attempt that option. It's so strange that it just randomly conked out, no hardware or even software changes whatsoever!

Anyway, I'll definitely try that, and will get back with the news (good, bad or ugly)

 

[ArtPog]

Before you do anything else, test the health of the SSD with Samsung's Magician program. I assume you haven't done so yet since you haven't mentioned it. Remember that whenever you're experiencing problems along the lines you've indicated ALWAYS - repeat, ALWAYS, test the drive with a diagnostic tool. You may very well be dealing with a defective disk. That may not be the root of your problem, but always test the disk. Capiche?

Also, let this be a lesson for you (after you hopefully resolve the problem) that you should always backup your system(s) on a reasonably frequent basis. By "backup", I mean using a program, e.g., a disk-cloning program, to COMPREHENSIVELY backup your entire system to another drive, installed either internally or externally, preferably the latter. Then when situations like the one you've just ran into occur you have the wherewithal to return your system to a bootable, functional system with little effort. Capiche?

P.S.
Disconnect (if you haven't already done so) the 2 TB secondary HDD from the system and boot only to the SSD to determine what happens. Sometimes a defective secondary drive plays havoc with the system. Probably not with your situation but give it a try if you haven't already done so.