[SOLVED] Boot SSD shows no partitions after crash/restart.

[iHunny]

Short version: Win10 PC crashed, fails to boot, shows no data in cmd diskpart.

Long version:
So I was gaming, surfing the net and watching youtube when something got an error and crashed the PC, its something that rarely happens but does so I did not look at the information gathering other than it was unusually slow.

Once I noticed that the computer failed to detect the operative system I restarted and went into BIOS, thinking it just failed to find the SSD with win10 on it. I set the correct SSD as boot and restart. No operation system could be found, slightly panic now as that have not happened before.

I followed to see if it was BIOS troubles and tested if I had remembered the wrong disk, and in all that I somehow managed to break BIOS. So I reset those and BIOS start working once more.

Next day, USB repair, "maybe wrong language version" and it can't repair the disk. Does not show why. After following some guides online I manage to enter cmd and Diskpart. Here it seems I started to find some trouble and have no knowledge "or failed to find" how to proceed.

The disk shows up with all bytes free, two partitions 1 with 0 B, and the command chkdsk /f , fails saying the disk is write protected.

Can my data on my SSD still be saved or/and can my SSD be formated and used as c: once more?

Failed to mention that the disk shows up with no volume "c: d: e:etcetera".

 

[dwd999]

Try downloading a linux live distro (e..g LinuxMint Mate) and use the Disk and Gparted apps contained there to evaluate the disk. See what they show and if the File Manager contained there will access the disk. If this works, you would at least be able to copy your essential files off of the disk. If nothing works, as a last resort, you could use the Gparted app to delete any partitions on the disk so that its space is shown as totally unallocated. Create a new GPT partition table and then you should be able to reinstall windows on the drive. (Note that when installing windows, the installer really prefers that only 1 drive be connected and that the drive space be totally unallocated. Additional drives can be reconnected after installation is complete.) And of course in the future you should probably perform periodic Macrium backups so that you can restore a damaged disk.

 

[iHunny]

of course in the future you should probably perform periodic Macrium backups so that you can restore a damaged disk.

For sure, thought at this moment I feel like just clean the disk and do a full install on it, the two days of troubleshoot took a toll. Was something semi important on it but nothing I wont be able to live without... Hopefully next installation will be more stable on my old can.

 

[johnbl]

-sometimes during a update, window will mark the partitions as write protected.
- sometimes if you use intel rapid storage technology driver, it will reassign the drive letters to each of the partitions during a windows update. It often assigns the first drive letter to a partition that microsoft normally wants hidden. The end result is the drive C: gets assigned drive D: and you have to use the diskpart.exe tool to move the drive letters.
BUT your tool could not see the drive. This can happen in certain cases after installing/deleting software and ssd has issues running the firmware TRIM commands. if this is the case, you would try and boot into bios and leave the machine running in bios for a hour or two. After 5 minutes the firmware should start its internal cleanup routines and then when it is done it starts responding again. just keep it in bios and leave it for a hour or two.
after the drive comes back you then reassign the drive letters and get it to boot again.
at that point you would clean up /remove files from the drive, run crystaldiskinfo.exe and read the firmware version and see the health of the drive.
update the firmware if there are known bugs. then update the storage controller driver. I tend to stick with the microsoft generic version of the driver and avoid the intel version. Microsoft windows updates pushes out fixes for the generic version. The intel version you are expected to manually update.

most people give up and reinstall and don't know why it starts working. Mostly because the reinstall uses the microsoft driver by default.

it is hard to step thru all of the things you have to do to fix this type of error.
one of the triggers to make the intel storage driver reassign drive letters was to attempt to boot with a usb drive that has a primary partition on it plugged in at the time of boot. just fyi

there can be other causes, broken sleep functions can tell the drive to sleep but it never gets the wake command.

 

[iHunny]

keep it in bios and leave it for a hour or two.

Will try to keep this in mind next time it happens, if it happens. Already formatted and everything and now the SSD works again with Win10 etc. Installed with only said SSD and no other disk connected to the system. Hopefully will work a bit more stable now.