[SOLVED] Issue w/ SSD Detection

[Ellowas]

Hi,


I have a 1 TB SSD (Samsung SSD 850 Evo) that I am having trouble with getting my primary laptop to detect and use as a replacement to its HDD.

After physically installing the SSD inside my primary laptop (MSI G62MVF 6RF Leopard Pro), I kept getting "No media present..." upon boot then redirected to UEFI despite my bootable USB installation media detecting it for the installation of Windows 10 within it.

After much fruitless attempts to see if UEFI, UEFI with CSM, and Legacy (I couldn't actually access the BIOS in Legacy—may have been hitting the wrong keys) would detect it, I physically installed it inside my secondary laptop (MSI GP62 6QF Leopard Pro), and it detected my SSD right away. I was able to set up Windows 10 for the SSD through that laptop, but my primary laptop still would not detect my SSD after inserting it back inside of it.

Is there anything I can do to make my SSD detectable in my primary laptop's UEFI's boot order?

I have the latest version of my primary laptop's BIOS (the official website only offers one from 2018—similar version to my secondary laptop's BIOS), Samsung Magician shows that the SSD has its latest firmware, and I unfortunately don't have one of those SATA cables.

 

[nofanneeded]

where is your old drive for the laptop ? you can clone it into the new SSD for a fast fix.

 

[Ellowas]

where is your old drive for the laptop ? you can clone it into the new SSD for a fast fix.

I left it out in my SSD's box for now.

How do I clone it without a SATA cable or a computer with more than one slot for storage drives?

 

[Ellowas]

Still made little to no progress two hours later...

Using Samsung Magician's Secure Erase did nothing for the primary laptop, and I discovered something about "initializing" the SSD, but I don't know any freeware partition wizards I can put on my USB drive since Disk Management is inaccessible on that PC. (Never mind. Windows' installation media apparently handles that if everything's unallocated and its the only thing being installed on it.)

I'm not sure what else to do since everything else via USB detects my SSD in my primary laptop, but its BIOS (Legacy and UEFI) refuses to detect it; I just don't know how my secondary laptop can detect it when they're almost the same model with similar 2018 BIOS.

 

[Ellowas]

Well if you are using Windows system, then there is a feature in Windows 10 to fix errors present on the SSD as follows:

1. Go to This PC and right-click on the SSD drive and select its Properties
2. Click the Tools tab and then select the Check button under Error-checking
3. If the ‘Error Checking’ dialog box reports no errors click Cancel or else click Scan Drive
4. If no error is found again, then click Cancel
5. If the ‘Error Checking’ dialog box reports repair this drive, then click Repair drive

Follow the above steps & see if that fixes the issue. If the issue still exists then try fixing below points and hopefully your drive gets detected:

1. SSD is not initialized
2. SSD drive letter is missing
3. SSD file system is not supported by Windows
4. SSD disk driver not installed properly.

Hope it helps!

I didn't encounter an error after running 'Error Checking' with the SSD inserted into my secondary laptop which doesn't surprise me since it's still brand new and functioning just fine inside this laptop.

The only problem is that my primary laptop won't detect it, and it's not showing up in any of its Serial ATAs in its BIOS.

Could it have to do with my BIOS's configuration or the SSD's formatting—that whole MBR and GBT thing? My secondary laptop's BIOS is set to UEFI with CSM, but my primary laptop's BIOS was initially set to UEFI, but setting it to UEFI with CSM didn't resolve the issue nor do I see any additional options for CSM (the same case with my secondary laptop).

As for the other steps:

1. As mentioned above, Windows initializes the storage drives itself through its installation media if all of its space is unallocated.
2. It seems to have all of the proper drive letters.

Can you explain the last two points?


(I wanted to add that Disk Management shows an option to convert my disk from a GPT disk to a MBR disk, but it is greyed out which might have to do with the disk drive being used; I don't have a SATA to USB cable, and I don't know of a freeware bootable partition wizard I could use while the disk drive is completely unallocated.)

 

[Palorim12]

have you tried contacting MSI or their forums and see if this is a known issue with replacing SATA devices in that model? since your secondary system is seeing the SSD just fine, i'd be inclined to say the SSD isn't the issue.

 

[Ellowas]

have you tried contacting MSI or their forums and see if this is a known issue with replacing SATA devices in that model? since your secondary system is seeing the SSD just fine, i'd be inclined to say the SSD isn't the issue.

I'll try contacting MSI about it.

If they can't think of anything, I think my only option would be saving up for a SATA to USB cable or an enclosure. Thanks for the help, I'll post an update if MSI or the cable/enclosure worked (if this thread doesn't get archived by then).

 

[Palorim12]

I'll try contacting MSI about it.

If they can't think of anything, I think my only option would be saving up for a SATA to USB cable or an enclosure. Thanks for the help, I'll post an update if MSI or the cable/enclosure worked (if this thread doesn't get archived by then).

you don't have to go crazy with usb adapter, i've used simple $10 ones from amazon for cloning and such with no issues

 

[Ellowas]

you don't have to go crazy with usb adapter, i've used simple $10 ones from amazon for cloning and such with no issues

I bought an enclosure, cloned my primary laptop's HDD to my SSD after using Samsung Magician's 'Secure Erase' on the latter, and unfortunately... the primary laptop still wouldn't detect the SSD—same "no media present..." error.

However, I did notice something a bit different this time: I went into my primary laptop's UEFI (I don't even know why it's called 'UEFI' when it's the appearance of a regular BIOS), changed 'UEFI with CSM' to just 'UEFI', restarted, immediately went back into UEFI to check if my SSD appeared in the boot order, and it actually did—Hard Disk: 1TB Samsung SSD 850 EVO.

Again, unfortunately, I restarted my PC after confirming in UEFI and still received that "no media present..." error, and upon checking UEFI again, the SSD was gone from the boot order—just 'Hard Disk' was present again.

I don't know what's going on, but it somehow briefly detected it in UEFI and gave me a blue screen after a few more restarts with an extremely small "Recovery" at the top left corner that hanged until it restarted on its own. Cloning did something but apparently not enough.

(I forgot to mention that the tool I used for cloning was Samsung's official data migration tool—downloaded it from their website, and it's the same tool the CD [installation media], that came with the SSD, wanted me to install from it alongside Samsung Magician.)

 

[Ellowas]

For some reason, my primary laptop's HDD is a GPT despite only having 1 TB, and my SSD—same size of storage—also became a GPT after the cloning process was finished.

Could the fact that the SSD became a GPT be the reason why my primary laptop couldn't detect it?

 

[Ellowas]

So, I have good news—of sorts.



A partition tool known as Marcium Reflect that was recommended to me cloned my HDD to my SSD as well as Samsung's Data Migration tool did, and even though it still returned the same "no media present..." error, the recovery media I created with Marcium Reflect managed to let me access my SSD and everything cloned into it after using the recovery media's "Fix Windows boot problems" and going through its step-by-step process which led to it restarting my PC and showing me my sign-in screen for my profile.

The "of sorts" part of the news is that restarting my PC again lands me back to the "no media present..." screen and no SSD being shown in UEFI unless I use the recovery media again—speaking of UEFI, I discovered a wealth of hidden settings through a key combination—SATA Configuration settings as well.

I don't really know what to make of any of this, but if there's anyone that can, I would really appreciate the help.

(Update: I'm not sure if its the Marcium Reflect recovery USB or the random restarts that will sometimes make my UEFI/BIOS detect and load the SSD.)

 

[Ellowas]

In 'msinfo32'. it shows that my SSD's Windows 10 is using UEFI—'BIOS Mode: UEFI'. and Disk Management is showing that my SSD is formatted as GPT.

After a few power cycles, my PC does allow me to access my SSD (hence how I was able to check 'msinfo32' in Windows 10) and it does show up in my UEFI (with 'Fast Boot' enabled and no CSM) whenever I check it before letting it finish loading, so could it be some delay setting in my UEFI or something else?

I know all I'm getting is radio silence from everyone here at this point, but I'm just letting everyone know that I am trying.

 

[Ellowas]

It seems like switching my SATA Mode to 'RAID' fixed my issue. I'm not sure why it consistently boots on this mode, but I'll take 100% consistency over 25-50% consistency.

Thanks to everyone within this thread who spared their time to help me; I greatly appreciate it.