Question SSD has mysteriously disappeared..

Yolnier

Commendable
May 14, 2017
5
0
1,510
OK so I'm officially at a loss of what to do. A bit of backstory, I'm helping a friend of mine build his very first PC and we've run onto quite the snag. First of all, the motherboard that he bought didn't support the new generation Ryzen CPU that he had and required a BIOS update, no big deal. I moved my CPU over to his build, downloaded his OS onto his SSD, and updated the BIOS of his motherboard. Everything was going smoothly, we were actually on the SSD using Windows! However, I then took my CPU out and replaced it with his, and the PC boots, but the SSD has suddenly disappeared from the boot order and cant be seen. WHY? no clue. The weirdest bit, is I can go into windows recovery using the USB that had the OS on it originally, and we can access the command prompt on the SSD! I've checked the cables and plugged into different ports on the motherboard but to no avail. Has anyone had this issue before and knows what on earth is going on?
 

PC Tailor

Illustrious
Ambassador
Do you have any other storage drive installed?
Realistically a clean install would need to happen if you change major hardware.
First you need to remove all storage drives apart from the drive you want your friends OS to be on permanently, reset CMOD, and restart the full clean installation.
 
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popatim

Titan
Moderator
Welcome to the world of a more Secure bios: UEFI.
It likely detected the hardware change and is preventing booting.
You may just need to turn off Secure Boot in the bios. Ideally, wipe all the existing partition on the SSD (All other drives should be disconnected) by clicking the Drive Options link on the 'Where to install to' window. Delete them all and when the drive is completely unallocated, select it (it turns blue), click next, and windows Install will take care of proper partitioning.
 

Yolnier

Commendable
May 14, 2017
5
0
1,510
Welcome to the world of a more Secure bios: UEFI.
It likely detected the hardware change and is preventing booting.
You may just need to turn off Secure Boot in the bios. Ideally, wipe all the existing partition on the SSD (All other drives should be disconnected) by clicking the Drive Options link on the 'Where to install to' window. Delete them all and when the drive is completely unallocated, select it (it turns blue), click next, and windows Install will take care of proper partitioning.

Ok so thank you for responding, and so far, I’ve moved the sad to my PC (funny enough it booted to his copy of OS at first) and completely unallocated his SSD. Then I moved it back to his build to try and re-install his OS. The windows setup still can’t find any drives to install on and the BIOS still says “No Device Found” EVEN THOUGH when I click the “Browse” option on the windows setup it shows me the drive, with everything still on it even though it was wiped. I’m at a loss
 

popatim

Titan
Moderator
How sure are you that it is the only drive in the PC?

Ok, Windows wont show a disk as available to install to if there is or has remanants of an OS on it and it sounds like there is.

First make sure there are no other drives plugged into this PC except for the windows install flashdrive and maybe an optical drive if you are using that to install windows.

Start/restart the PC with the install drive still plugged in but instead of clicking "Install Now", select Repair my Pc, then Advanced, Troubleshoot, and finally select Command prompt
Type in: Diskpart <hit enter>
Give it a minute to get to where it will take the next command. LOL
Type in: List Disk <enter>
{make note of the number assigned to your disk. Its probably 0 or 1. We'll assume 0 for now but replace it with whatever is listed for you}
type in: Select Disk 0 <enter>
type in: clean <enter>

When the clean command is done, hit /type exit twice and it will shutdown the pc, restart it and try installing windows again.
 

Yolnier

Commendable
May 14, 2017
5
0
1,510
How sure are you that it is the only drive in the PC?

Ok, Windows wont show a disk as available to install to if there is or has remanants of an OS on it and it sounds like there is.

First make sure there are no other drives plugged into this PC except for the windows install flashdrive and maybe an optical drive if you are using that to install windows.

Start/restart the PC with the install drive still plugged in but instead of clicking "Install Now", select Repair my Pc, then Advanced, Troubleshoot, and finally select Command prompt
Type in: Diskpart <hit enter>
Give it a minute to get to where it will take the next command. LOL
Type in: List Disk <enter>
{make note of the number assigned to your disk. Its probably 0 or 1. We'll assume 0 for now but replace it with whatever is listed for you}
type in: Select Disk 0 <enter>
type in: clean <enter>

When the clean command is done, hit /type exit twice and it will shutdown the pc, restart it and try installing windows again.
To be clear, are you saying to clean the USB? Because when I go through that process, the only drive that shows up is the USB not the SSD.
 

Yolnier

Commendable
May 14, 2017
5
0
1,510
No I mean the SSD.
You said it is still seen in Windows Install when you click browse, so Disk Management should still see it when you do a 'list disk'
Ok that’s what I thought. When I do everything you mentioned, the only drive that shows up is the 14 Gb USB with the installation media on it. He doesn’t have an optical drive.

Is there a way to post pictures on this forum? I’ll just try to explain everything, so the browse thing I was talking about; after entering in the product key for windows, you can choose either to update to windows 10 or a custom install. Choosing custom install brings you to a screen where it want you to pick a drive. There are no drives that show up but, I can hit the browse button below it to search for an installation media and it lets me look on the SSD for installation media.