Tried installing a new SSD, lots going wrong.

[Brakkus]

I got a new Samsung EVO 850 500 GB SSD recently, tried installing it today after getting brand new SATA cables.

The SSD wouldn't show up, but I remembered that for some reason my blue SATA ports never really worked. So I decided to plug the new SSD where my secondary hard drive was plugged into.

The computer wouldn't start up at all with that set up, so I put in the old one again and it started up.

Well, now my computer keeps powering down randomly.

Guessing it's time to buy a new mobo?

Everything is pushed in correctly, from what I can tell. The psu is less than a year old so it shouldn't be that. Could I get some help?

Edit: It keeps trying to power on, lights turn on and fans revving but then dies.

My motherboard is an ASUS P8Z77-V LK

Edit 2: After firmly pushing everything in a second time, it seems to be stable. Guess I may have jostled the power connections a bit? Kind of nervous to try and do anything though, and the SATA port stuff is still going on.

 

[Jwpanz]

If some of your SATA ports are not working then that could be a sign that the SATA controller on your motherboard is going bad. Perhaps your best bet is to get a new motherboard.

Are you trying to clone your current boot drive to that new SSD or just use it for general storage?

 

[Brakkus]

If some of your SATA ports are not working then that could be a sign that the SATA controller on your motherboard is going bad. Perhaps your best bet is to get a new motherboard.

Are you trying to clone your current boot drive to that new SSD or just use it for general storage?

The computer is running at the moment, but that didn't last last time.

I'm just trying to use the SSD for storage.

 

[bluebob951]

does it boot without the ssd installed?

 

[Brakkus]

does it boot without the ssd installed?

Yes, it is currently working normally with both the original drives installed (though about half an hour ago it powered down randomly). I think I accidentally jostled the power connector and that was causing issues.

But the issues with the SATA ports still remains, which probably just means I have to buy a new MOBO.

 

[bluebob951]

does it boot without the ssd installed?

Yes, it is currently working normally with both the original drives installed (though about half an hour ago it powered down randomly). I think I accidentally jostled the power connector and that was causing issues.

But the issues with the SATA ports still remains, which probably just means I have to buy a new MOBO.

I would just look into a new mobo or a complete upgrade entirely.

 

[Brakkus]

does it boot without the ssd installed?

Yes, it is currently working normally with both the original drives installed (though about half an hour ago it powered down randomly). I think I accidentally jostled the power connector and that was causing issues.

But the issues with the SATA ports still remains, which probably just means I have to buy a new MOBO.

I would just look into a new mobo or a complete upgrade entirely.

Well a lot of the stuff doesn't really need to be upgraded, the RAM, PSU and GPU are all pretty new.

 

[Major_Trouble]

With such limited info about you pc it's hard to diagnose much. What I can tell you from your mobo is the 2x grey SATA ports are your 6Gb/s ports and the 6x blue SATA ports are 3 Gb/s ports. Your new SSD should be on a 6Gb/s port anyway.

You said you had a secondary HDD on the 2nd 6Gb/s SATA port.
How many drives do you have?
Are you using any of the 3Gb/s SATA ports? CD/DVD?
How many drives are you trying to power from one leg of you PSUs power connectors?
Are you using native SATA power connectors or a molex crossover?
What other hardware do you have in your PC? GPU, RAM, etc.
What is your PSU model?

You say your PC is pretty new but any hardware associated with a Z77 board isn't what I would consider pretty new.

 

[mazboy]

I only have personal, and somewhat limited experience with SSDs, so this is what I know, and what worked on a couple of computers I built or upgraded using SSDs. A lot of what I've seen on the net doesn't work, probably because of various BIOS, motherboard, driver and OS issues. The older your hardware, the more likely you are to have problems, and it sounds like you already have motherboard problems to begin with.

BTW, if none of the below works, or you get stuck, respond with a complete description of you kit: Brand, year, motherboard brand (if you built it yourself), CPU, RAM, OS, etc, and try to explain precisely what you did, how you got stuck, and what the computer did and said.

I have had absolutely zero luck trying to clone an HDD to an SSD. Don't bother. You'll want a clean install of the OS anyway: things will be better that way, trust me.

You are using the latest edition of Win10, right? If not, stop right now and upgrade to it. It is still possible to upgrade to Win10 from Win7 or 8 free, but you need to do it before Jan 1, 2018 (and you have to pretend you can't see straight: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade). Do this before you do anything else. If you're running a Linux flavor, write back and tell us that.

When you are up to date on Win10, make yourself a bootable USB stick per the below instructions. I assume you are going to install the OS on the SSD.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3198745/windows/how-to-install-windows-10-on-a-usb-drive-with-microsofts-media-creation-tool.html

With your old HDD in its original place, all nicely upgraded to Win10 v1709 (16299.15, known as "Fall Creators Update"), hook up your new SSD in an available slot (requires two cables: the small SATA data cable and the wider, flatter SATA power cable). Boot up and download the free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant. Windows Explorer often cannot "see" a virgin HDD/SSD. Even Windows Disk Manager gets confused sometimes. AOMEI Partition assistant will see your new SSD and let you partition & format it (to NTFS) so you can use it. Make sure it formats as GPT, not MBR.

Did I mention to backup everything before you start. Oh, yeah. Do that.

Now remove your old HDD and replace it with the new SSD. Leave the old HDD out. Boot into your BIOS and make sure it is set to AHCI, not RAID. Lots of SSDs will not work in RAID. Install Win10 from the USB stick per the instructions. If you formatted the SSD properly, Windows should see it and have no trouble installing itself there.

Once you have Win10 up and running, you can reload all your applications/programs and data from your original and backup sources. It's kind of a pain, but you will have a brand-new, fresh install of everything, which is a great place to start.

Again, if this doesn't work, write back what you have, and what went wrong.

 

[Brakkus]

With such limited info about you pc it's hard to diagnose much. What I can tell you from your mobo is the 2x grey SATA ports are your 6Gb/s ports and the 6x blue SATA ports are 3 Gb/s ports. Your new SSD should be on a 6Gb/s port anyway.

You said you had a secondary HDD on the 2nd 6Gb/s SATA port.
How many drives do you have?
Are you using any of the 3Gb/s SATA ports? CD/DVD?
How many drives are you trying to power from one leg of you PSUs power connectors?
Are you using native SATA power connectors or a molex crossover?
What other hardware do you have in your PC? GPU, RAM, etc.
What is your PSU model?

You say your PC is pretty new but any hardware associated with a Z77 board isn't what I would consider pretty new.

I meant I have newer pieces, the CPU and Motherboard are both dated.

BUT, I was actually very, very stupid and my issue with the SATA cables was that I didn't put in the power cable to the SSD. I currently have all 3 drives connected through one leg of PSU cables.

The SSD is now showing up in device management and samsung magician (but not disk management, will update and tell if its in BIOS), but I'm trying to figure out how to format it so it can read in windows explorer.

My specs are:

GPU: MSI R9 390 16 GB VRAM
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i5-3570K
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V LK -- 2x PCI-E 3.0 x16, 4x USB 3.0
RAM: 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair.
PSU: 850 Watt EVGA Supernova G2
Operating System & Version: Windows 10

 

[Major_Trouble]

I have had absolutely zero luck trying to clone an HDD to an SSD. Don't bother. You'll want a clean install of the OS anyway: things will be better that way, trust me.

Boot up and download the free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant. Windows Explorer often cannot "see" a virgin HDD/SSD. Even Windows Disk Manager gets confused sometimes. AOMEI Partition assistant will see your new SSD and let you partition & format it (to NTFS) so you can use it. Make sure it formats as GPT, not MBR.

Cloning a HDD to SSD is generally easy with Samsung Data Migration software which OP will have access to as he has a 850 EVO. For the SSD drive to function correctly he needs to already have AHCI enabled in the BIOS. If he doesn't he'd need to reinstall Windows anyway as switching it on will stop Windows booting.

Windows Explorer won't see any drive properly unless it's partitioned so no surprises there. I have never had a problem with Windows Disk Manager getting confused and not showing drives. Much better to use a native Windows function than use a 3rd party download unless really necessary.

 

[Brakkus]

Another update: The PC powered down again, after a reset it keeps turning on and off again. Every time it boots up it tells me it was protecting my PC from a power surge, then when windows boots up it crashes again.

In BIOS, the voltage under 3.3v was dipping into the red for a moment. Gonna retry resetting the cables again. Also, the computer doesn't shut off completely unless I use the power switch on the back.

Update again:

Finally got the SSD to work.

I think the cables connecting my MOBO and PSU were a little loose. Would that be what was causing the voltage issues in BIOS and causing my computer to crash/protect itself from power surges?

Hopefully everything is fixed, otherwise I'll just open a new thread in a more relevant section for my power surges.