Question System has two 250GB SSDs. How to identify which is on motherboard, which is on PCIE card?

[troofseeker]

The two drives are identical Samsung 970 Evo 250GB M.2 (2280), NVMe SSD. Both contain W10 system files. One is mounted on the motherboard, one on a PCIe card. Short of pulling them out, one at a time, is there any way to tell which is the one that holds the working system? There's no dual boot setup, though it's possible there once was.

 

[USAFRet]

The two drives are identical Samsung 970 Evo 250GB M.2 (2280), NVMe SSD. Both contain W10 system files. One is mounted on the motherboard, one on a PCIe card. Short of pulling them out, one at a time, is there any way to tell which is the one that holds the working system? There's no dual boot setup, though it's possible there once was.

Did you originally set this system up?
Why Win 10 on both drives?

What motherboard?

Give us a screencap of the Disk Management window, and Device Manager window.



And really, you only have to disconnect one, once.

But this sounds like a candidate for a full wipe and reinstall.

 

[troofseeker]

Did you originally set this system up? NO (Apologies for caps)
Why Win 10 on both drives? UNKNOWN

What motherboard? ASUS Z170M-PLUS

Give us a screencap of the Disk Management window, and Device Manager window.
I'M UNABLE TO ACCESS THIS REMOTE PC, TALKING TO OWNER BY PHONE

And really, you only have to disconnect one, once. YES, I KNOW. BUT I'M TRYING TO ADVISE THE OWNER WHO HAS LIMITED SKILLS. IN A WAY, THIS IS JUST OF ACADEMIC INTEREST FOR ME - I'D LIKE TO KNOW IF THERE'S A WAY OF DOING THIS FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

But this sounds like a candidate for a full wipe and reinstall.

 

[USAFRet]

Well....

Doing this by remote to a non-tech user introduces a LOT of weirdness. That would have been helpful to know upfront.
There are so many things wrong here that it is near impossible to "help".

As said, a screencap of the Disk Management and Device Manager windows would go a looong way.

 

[troofseeker]

No worries, I'll try Stack Exchange.