[SOLVED] Can't boot off M.2 NVMe SSD ?

[I_GOT_THE_MONEY]

Hey y'all,

I upgraded to an M.2 SSD from a SATA SSD which had been my boot drive for a number of years. Well I remember having problems when I first upgraded about 6 months ago, I wasn't able to continue to use my old SATA SSD as a storage drive without the PC trying to boot off of it, and if I forced a boot off the M.2 in the bios it would boot to the "reboot and select proper boot device..." screen. I don't quite remember how but I did manage to get the system to boot by leaving out the old SATA SSD.

Fast forward to today when I was switching cases around to a new case and decided to give it another try on my SATA SSD. Now I'm encountering the same issue, except this time I cannot get the device to boot off the M.2 in any circumstances. I've tried unplugging all 3 of my other drives (The SSD and two HDDs), and at that point the boot menu in BIOS doesn't even recognize the M.2 as a drive. (on a side note both HDDs aren't being recognized but I have a feeling they're in the SATA ports that my motherboard knocks out when an M.2 is installed.) And again for the record I booted off this NVMe M.2 for months without issue, the only time an issue occured was when the SATA SSD was reintroduced.

These are the specs:

M.2: WD Blue SN550 1TB

SATA SSD: SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB

Mobo: ASUS TUF Gaming Z390-Plus WiFi

I'd really appreciate any help!

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

you aren't setting up the drives properly.
when Windows is installed it creates boot sectors on the disk and will create other system partitions on any secondary disks found during the install.
when one of these disks is removed Windows sometimes cannot load properly anymore.
and when one of these disks is added back into the lineup it will conflict with others.

when switching OS or boot disks you need to remove the existing system partitions of off any other disks.

when installing Windows it is always recommended to remove\disconnect all other disks but the target OS disk during the install.

the boot menu in BIOS doesn't even recognize the M.2 as a drive. (on a side note both HDDs aren't being recognized but I have a feeling they're in the SATA ports that my motherboard knocks out when an M.2 is installed.

depending on which M.2 slots there are settings that need to altered in the BIOS to enable the drive.

and your motherboard manual will describe in detail which slots will disable which SATA ports.

 

[I_GOT_THE_MONEY]

when installing Windows it is always recommended to remove\disconnect all other disks but the target OS disk during the install.

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding, but windows is already installed on the M.2 drive, I'm not going for a new install at this point. I've been booting off of it for months. When I installed windows originally it was the only disk connected. I just don't understand why when I remove the SATA SSD (the previous boot drive), the BIOS doesn't recognize the M.2 as a boot drive at all when I've been booting off of it for months

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

I upgraded to an M.2 SSD from a SATA SSD which had been my boot drive for a number of years. Well I remember having problems when I first upgraded about 6 months ago, I wasn't able to continue to use my old SATA SSD as a storage drive without the PC trying to boot off of it, and if I forced a boot off the M.2 in the bios it would boot to the "reboot and select proper boot device..." screen. I don't quite remember how but I did manage to get the system to boot by leaving out the old SATA SSD.

format the SSD to remove any system partitions off of it.
reinstall Windows with only the M.2 connected and it will contain all of the system\boot partitions.
the SSD will no longer have anything to do with the system boot parameters.

if you are still having problems with the M.2 drive being detected while it is the only disk attached load optimized defaults in the BIOS.
if you have multiple M.2 slots make sure it is located in M.2_1.
if it still fails to be recognized there is either an issue with the motherboard, the drive, or some BIOS setting that needs to be enabled for the M.2 to be detected.

but, even if the BIOS doesn't appear to detect the M.2 the Windows installer may and will setup it's own boot manager that will load the OS from this drive.