Question BIOS Not detecting extra SSD drive

[thereus]

Hello,

I was doing some troubleshooting for my pc as it has been having this issue where I need to force a shutdown to start it properly after having initially started it. Basically it turns on and shows the ASUS symbol and all, but then goes to black screen. My guess is that it is not loading windows properly, but I don't know. Only workaround is by forcing a shutdown and then turning it on right after and it will start up like normal. Any ideas for a solution to this would be much appreciated!

Anyway, that is not why I'm seeking help here. During my troubleshooting I had wandered into the dark forest of the BIOS settings.. And I had tried to disable the Fast Boot option as I had read that that could be the cause for my above issue. But now my pc would just go straight into the BIOS settings when I turned it on and would not do anything else. So I quickly hit the default settings option and hoped that I had made everything go back to normal. And it had.. somewhat.. because now I can boot it up using the described method before, but it will not show my Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD drive that I had purchased some time ago and installed myself. It's showing my 500GB drive which has Windows installed but not the extra SSD. Not in the BIOS settings nor in the file explorer.
I've been looking around on the internet for a solution and also trying to adjust a few settings here and there in the BIOS settings but without luck.

My pc is fairly old now, I'm estimating around 8 years old if not more so the BIOS interface is outdated and most tutorials therefore don't make sense.

Some specs:
- Motherboard: ASUS Z97-AR
- Intel i7-4790K 4GHz
- BIOS Version: American Megatrends Inc. 3503, 18-04-2018
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 10

I remember there were some BIOS settings that had to be changed when I installed the extra SSD. I believe it was something related to PCIE something? or maybe it was something about legacy and UEFI first. I don't recall the exact change but there was something. But before I ruin something else I'll rather wait for some expert advice from you guys.

I look forward to your input!

 

[Lutfij]

You forgot to mention to mention the make and model of your PSU and it's age. Are you working with any other PCIe devices on your system? Have you tried clearing the CMOS? Did you try reflashing the BIOS for your motherboard?

16 GB RAM
Got a link to the ram you're working with?

 

[thereus]

You forgot to mention to mention the make and model of your PSU and it's age. Are you working with any other PCIe devices on your system? Have you tried clearing the CMOS? Did you try reflashing the BIOS for your motherboard?

16 GB RAM
Got a link to the ram you're working with?

Thank you for your reply!

My sincerest apologies for not going into more detail with the specs. I wasn't expecting it to be as important for the issue at hand.

The PSU is the original one that was put in from when I got the PC. It's a CoolerMaster 650W. Never had any isuses with it so far.

Are you working with any other PCIe devices on your system?
I don't have much knowledge about the technical terms such as PCIe. Can you specify what you mean? I only have my graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB) and the extra SSD of 1 TB connected to the motherboard directly.

The RAM are 2x 8GB Crucial DDR3L 1600MHz (CT102464BF160B). It was originally at 8GB, but I have since then purchased and installed the 2 aforementioned RAM units myself and have not had a single problem since then.

Have you tried clearing the CMOS? Did you try reflashing the BIOS for your motherboard?
I have no idea what those things mean, so no I don't think I have, but I'll try and look up how to do those things and try it out.


*Update*
I have now tried to perform the CMOS option. Found out there was a button I could hold down 5-10 seconds on the case and it would clear it. It did it's thing and I had to do the BIOS setup, but no luck with the drive.
However, I don't know how relevant it is, but I forgot to mention that while in the BIOS settings I am unable to use my mouse. I can use the keyboard, but not the mouse. Also, it often freezes and I am forced to do a force shutdown and try again. Could this have any relevance to my issue?

 

[thereus]

**FIXED**

I have fixed the problem! I was doing some more research online and was looking for an option named "Hot Plug-in" in the BIOS settings when I stumbled upon a setting named "PCI Express Slot and M.2 Bandwidth".
I remembered there was a relation between the M.2 and my drive and tried to set it to "M.2 Mode" which has then made my extra drive reappear and it's now fully working once again.

Now I just still need to figure out why I must do a force shutdown everytime I want to start my pc.

I appreciate anyone who's been trying to help or been doing research for me. Much appreciated!

Stay safe!