Question I am beyond desperate and sad.

chewtech

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Sep 14, 2017
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This is gonna be long, so I apologize in advance.
About 5 weeks ago I went to bed as normal with my computer on, woke up to see it wasn't working. After some troubleshooting I came to realize that it wasn't recognizing my hard drives. I have 4 M.2's in this build. 3 on board, and 1 in a pci adapter. The PCI adapter drive showed up in the bios, none of the rest did. Swapped a non working to PCI, and working to M.2 first, this would tell me if the M.2 slots were dead. The drive that had been showing up, continued to show up, while one of the bad drives still wouldn't. I was getting really stressed at the thought of losing all that data and money on drives so I walk away for about a month.
About a week ago, I figured I would test the bad drives in a m.2 slot on my backup computer, to finally see if my drives were dead or not. It wouldn't give me a display to monitor, which was another problem. Instantly get mad again and walk away.
Decided to breakdown and buy a laptop, been wanting a laptop for a long time, so I made sure to get one with an extra M.2 so I could test, as well as have a laptop. Get a Nitro 5 from Acer. It came DOA. Wouldn't power on, and plugged into the wall, it wasn't showing that it was receiving any power. Go back to Amazon to read the 1 star reviews, it's been a noted problem that they have that issue and come dead on arrival. Return it, and buy another laptop.
Yesterday, finally went back to try to figure out my backup computer not displaying, I had recently moved its case, and hit some random switch on the motherboard, no clue what it does, but flipping it again instantly fix it.
Now I can finally test a bad drive, and it showed up and I could access the data. I only tried 1 of the 3 bad drives, figuring they were all good and it was something else. Only thing I could think of doing was to do a BIOS update on my main computer.
I did that BIOS update on my main computer tonight, and now I'm having another issue. With none of the "bad" drives in, it boots up, shows me bios and goes to the generic screen telling you to insert bootable drive or turn computer off. As soon as I put the "bad" drive in that has the OS, it won't display at all. The debug code is showing E3. I am so far beyond lost. I am out of ideas. I cannot understand how so much can go wrong.

Specs if desired:
Motherboard: Aorus Gaming 9
CPU: 7900x
GPU: 1080ti
64gb of corsair vengeance ram
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Before doing anything ensure that all important data is backed up at least 2 x to locations off of the current host. Verify that the backups are recoverable and readable.

= = = =

On the original problem computer:

PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original, new, refurbished, used)?

Other disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

This motherboard (do verify):

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileL...1001_e.pdf?v=14995f52ff9035196d3bfd7be6182918

Use the manual to determine what that random switch was. That could be a clue as to what has happened. Sudden power losses can and will corrupt files.

Also look for any lit diagnostic LED and what that E3 debug code indicates.

Clear CMOS per the User Manual and install a new CMOS battery.

Go back to basics.

Use the motherboard manual to start completely over. Begin with just one known working M.2 as the boot drive.

Take your time, be methodical. Keep notes about what you do and what happens or does not happen as applicable.

Post accordingly.
 

chewtech

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Sep 14, 2017
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I could have typed a lot of this better, I'm just so brain dead at this point. To clarify, the random switch was on the backup system, which hadn't even had one of the drives I'm struggling with in it, until after it posted. I added that just because it's been another annoyance on my string of bad lucks.

The drives were a 256gb Samsung 950 pro, which was OS only, and a little past half full with 100gb free.
Another was 512gb Samsung 950 pro, which is had about 300gb free, which is currently showing up in windows on my backup.
The third was a 1tb WD blue, which probably had about 600gb free after the steam games.
The fourth drive, that was in the PCI adapter, that has remained showing up the entire time is a Samsung 980 1tb, with about 800gb free,

The power supply I've had since new, it an EVGA 850.

The debug code is "OS S3 wake vector call". By all accounts, everyone else on the internet with the board that has asked what it is, is fully functional and booting into windows.

I'm just at my wits end, bios update for the first time ever, cleared CMOS a couple different times.

At this point, it turns on, goes into bios fine, goes into windows installation from the usb stick fine. So I turn it off, put the OS M.2 drive in, and it turns on, and wont give screen signal.
 

Pakadermia

Reputable
May 2, 2017
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4,565
In bios, is the OS drive set to be first in the boot order? I've had a highly similar problem in the past and this was my solution to get back into windows. Goodluck and sorry for all your misfortunes .
 

chewtech

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Sep 14, 2017
37
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4,530
In bios, is the OS drive set to be first in the boot order? I've had a highly similar problem in the past and this was my solution to get back into windows. Goodluck and sorry for all your misfortunes .
At this point, the computer turns on, goes into BIOS just fine, will load the windows installation USB fine. Turn it off and put the OS M.2 in, and then it wont give any display to monitor. So I couldn't put it in and go into bios to change anything.
 

chewtech

Reputable
Sep 14, 2017
37
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4,530
E3 isnt error code, PC is trying to wake up from sleep
you coul format that drive on another PC
From troubleshooting, that wouldn't help with the issue. One of the drives I thought died, tested in my backup computer still worked fine and gave me access to the data.
Returning that drive to my main machine, it wont show up in bios. Being placed in an onboard M.2 slot, or PCI M.2 adapter, which both have been proven to still be functional.
 

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