Question SSD won't boot intermittently

[oticoyote]

Guys/gals,

I have an Acer Aspire V laptop. I recently replaced the HDD with a 500GB SSD (Silicon Power Ace A55 512GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive). Once Windows 10 boots, the computer works perfectly. But, about 50% of the time, the computer doesn't recognize the SSD on boot and I get the No Bootable Device error. When that error occurs, if I go into the BIOS, it doesn't show the SSD.

If I use Ctrl/Alt/Del to reboot, after maybe 3-4 tries, it will boot and all is well - until I shut down the PC again.

UEFI is selected in the BIOS (selecting Legacy doesn't work) and the SSD is listed first in boot order. It's a fresh Windows 10 install on the SSD.

I don't think its a poor connection - I've checked that, and the problem occurs exclusively with boot - otherwise the drive works perfectly. Likewise, I don't think it's a defective drive, for the same reason.

Advice? Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Satan-IR]

Well, if BIOS doesn't see a storage drive the OS wouldn't see it either. Is the SATA set to AHCI?

Is the SSD running with the latest firmware? It can be an outdated firmware and malfunctioning controller issue.

It wouldn't hurt to doublecheck the connection to the port again.

Try resetting the BIOS to default (change boot sequence after this and set SSD to 1 again). Sometimes updating BIOS to latest version solves issues like this (try this as last resort if nothing else works).

Also after above steps (if the BIOS allows) turn on hot plugging for the SSD.

 

[oticoyote]

Thanks for your help. SATA is set to AHCI. I forgot to mention, but I already updated the BIOS to the latest version and it had no effect. I've already taken the case apart and checked the connection - it seems fine.

The SSD firmware I'm not sure of. I'll look into that. I'm also not sure if hot plugging is available in the BIOS, but will check that as well and report back.