Question Secondary SSD won't let PC boot

[G_T]

I've got a new prebuilt Win11 PC with an issue I'm seeking help with. The computer has a 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD as the boot drive, and a 1TB HD for data. I added a 1TB SSD shortly after purchasing, which I used to run programs and games. All worked in unison for about two weeks.
This morning, when downloading photos/videos off my phone to the preinstalled 'data' drive, my computer froze. After waiting for a bit, I turned the computer off and attempted to reboot. Black screens on both monitors. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting every power plug and connection inside the tower, as well as setting the Bios boot order from 'boot order' to the PCIe drive. The only thing that gets the computer to turn on properly is removing the SSD that I added. After realizing that was the problem, I changed sata cables to that SSD, but no luck.
Is the SSD that I added dead, or is there another potential fix that anyone can think of? I appreciate any suggestions/help/advice.

 

[Bob.B]

I've got a new prebuilt Win11 PC with an issue I'm seeking help with. The computer has a 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD as the boot drive, and a 1TB HD for data. I added a 1TB SSD shortly after purchasing, which I used to run programs and games. All worked in unison for about two weeks.
This morning, when downloading photos/videos off my phone to the preinstalled 'data' drive, my computer froze. After waiting for a bit, I turned the computer off and attempted to reboot. Black screens on both monitors. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting every power plug and connection inside the tower, as well as setting the Bios boot order from 'boot order' to the PCIe drive. The only thing that gets the computer to turn on properly is removing the SSD that I added. After realizing that was the problem, I changed sata cables to that SSD, but no luck.
Is the SSD that I added dead, or is there another potential fix that anyone can think of? I appreciate any suggestions/help/advice.

Perhaps connect this ssd via usb and see if you can access it.

 

[G_T]

Perhaps connect this ssd via usb and see if you can access it.

I appreciate that suggestion, thank you. I tried that, it would not connect. Makes a sound like it connects, then quickly disconnects. When I first got the new PC, I tried to connect that drive via usb adapter, and it would not connect. When I installed it in the computer, however, it worked fine. I copied it's contents, formatted it, and then added back the programs that were running on it until the computer froze.

 

[G_T]

When computer users are eager to upgrade HDD to SSD for better performance, most of them would like to clone HDD to SSD to evade the hassle of reinstalling OS and applications from scratch. However, part of users may encounter a common problem like the scenario said, not able to boot from the new SSD. Why would that happened? Here we conclude some possible reasons. 1. The SSD was not the first boot device in BIOS. 2. The system partition is not active. 3. If your cloned drive is a GPT disk, and your PC does not support UEFI mode, then the SSD won’t boot after clone. 4. The Master Boot Record of the cloned SSD is damaged. 5. The boot sector wasn’t copied and you need to make sure that you copied all partitions.

Thanks for your response. To be clear, I did not clone the OS from the preinstalled SSD to the new SSD. Instead, I'm using the new SSD to run programs and games. The OS remains on the original PCle drive.