[SOLVED] Windows 10 no longer sees my M.2 boot SSD, but it still shows in BIOS as a boot option ?

bamim2

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PLEASE HELP!

My Windows 10 system no longer boots because it can't find my M.2 drive which is the boot drive. I can see the drive in the BIOS/UEFI. It even shows up as one of the boot options, I obviously have the NVM Option Enabled. I tried taking the M2 drive out & restarted my PC, then shut it down & put the M2 back . That didn't make any difference. I can boot to a USB thumb drive, but I'm not sure what I do from a command prompt when the drive isn't there. I have booted & gone to a command prompt (not from USB though) & the drives are all there except for the one I need. NO M2,

If anyone has any suggestions that might help, I'm ready to listen. I'm totally at a loss. I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this, if not please point me the right direction. Thank you in advance.
 
Solution
You mention being able to see the drive and select it as a valid boot option from BIOS.
For instance, if you took the USB installer and went in like you were going to delete partitions (don't) can you see them all there?

I ran into an issue like this where the install corrupted and acted like this until I did a clean install. The particular instance was due to my messing with RAM timings and such, so pretty sure I did it myself that time.

I make assumption that you would have tried a safe mode boot if that option was available to you...and to be fair I cannot recall if the installer will opt a repair an installation.

CMOS reset would be a long shot, but perhaps worth trying?

punkncat

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You mention being able to see the drive and select it as a valid boot option from BIOS.
For instance, if you took the USB installer and went in like you were going to delete partitions (don't) can you see them all there?

I ran into an issue like this where the install corrupted and acted like this until I did a clean install. The particular instance was due to my messing with RAM timings and such, so pretty sure I did it myself that time.

I make assumption that you would have tried a safe mode boot if that option was available to you...and to be fair I cannot recall if the installer will opt a repair an installation.

CMOS reset would be a long shot, but perhaps worth trying?
 
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bamim2

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I went as far as I can go in the windows installation & still be able to get out. It looks like the drive partitions are still there, but it looks like I lost majority of the files on them. The partitions are the same size, but they have fewer files than I remember. Right after I posted this earlier today, I stripped down the everything everything I could on he PC. I left just what needed to be there. I removed all the other drives, unplugged everything from USB ports. I left the Video card & the boot drive. I plugged in Monitor, keyboard & mouse & tried again. Nothing changed. Windows kept running me around in circles with automatic repairs.

I did boot from a USB installer & got all the way to the windows install screen, then got out to Repair my system. I tried to get a directory of c: & got an error message something like the drive is corrupted. I ran chckdsk /f on the c drive & then was able to get dir to work & went & looked around. I ran it a second time & it fixed about a thousand problems, then came back & said everything was fine. I rebooted, but everything was not fine. I still could not boot into Windows from the hard drive.

I got carried away earlier & somehow managed to break a tooth, so besides messing with this crazy problem, I'm in excruciating pain. I'm not able to focus very well & it takes me a long time to even do the simplest things. I do something, then I wander off & do something else. Then I come back & think, "who did this"? Since I'm the only one here, I guess we all know who did it. This whole problem may just be due to a loose nut behind the keyboard. Hmm.... I guess that's my sign to take a break from this.

Thank you for your reply, I'll come back & read things though again when I can focus & hopefully have a bit better comprehension....
 

punkncat

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Ouch, hate to hear it about the tooth. Probably be Monday on having anything done about that...

I would consider that a partition delete and clean install are probably where you will end up on this. Hopefully your personal info was backed up or replaceable, or nothing (hardware) is damaged.
 

bamim2

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I don't know why things like my tooth always seem to happen on Fridays. My dentist only works Monday through Thursday so I'm out of luck until Monday. Just like you said. My wife did contact him & asked him to phone in some Antibiotics. He did, she went & picked them up & although my jaw is swollen & I look a lot like Elephant Man, it feels MUCH better. So that said....

I was thinking about this (all night while I was sleeping) & maybe I'll pull the M2 drive out. Put another drive in there & do a clean installation of Windows 10. When that's working properly, then shut it down & put the M2 drive back in & boot to the new drive with Windows 10. IF it will let me boot to the new drive with the old drive in there. Since I have an SSD that I can use, it shouldn't take that long just to get a basic OS & then I can take a better look at what the XXXX happened to my M2. MAYBE (hope, hope, hope) even repair it. If not repair it, I can at least copy everything that survived if it's worth saving. Maybe I can get lucky on this & still be able to salvage something. It has always been one of my main missions to turn a problem into something better than what I had. It's sort of my own person version of, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade".

It's also been my experience for the past several years that anytime I say or write something positive, I seem to get the old, "Oh yea? I'll put an end to that right now..." & things immediately take a turn for the worst. I may have just been a victim of "Friday the 13th" ooooohhhhh,..

Again. Thank you for the input. If I don't blow my house up, I'll try my next step & report back. If by some chance it works, maybe it will help someone who stumbles across this in the future or maybe it will spark an idea & you'll go, "Hey, what about trying this?" Your input so far has been VERY helpful. Especially when I was all cloudy yesterday. It really helped me focus on what was important. I'll be back. Cheers....
 

bamim2

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Well that was fun. I spent WAY too much time on repairing this before I finally remembered to look & see if I had a backup. I looked. I had one & I wiped the drive with the windows installation boot drive that I have first, then removed all the other drives except the boot drive M2 & booted with backupper's winPE USB drive I made & up it came. I saved my backups across my network, I had a full backup & 6 incremental backps. The last of which was 2 days before my system crashed. I clicked on the last incremental backup & 6 hours later my system was restored.

I also learned something that will probably raise a firestorm, but I'm going to tell it like it is. My backup software backed up my C drive *boot drive" partition, the system reserved partition & the efi partition, it did NOT backup the 16mb partition that supposedly HAS TO BE THERE for my M.2 drive to boot up my system. I'm here to tell you that it's not there on my system & it boots up just fine. The restore process didn't put it on there because it didn't get backed up. I tried everything I could think of before I tried to restore, because EVERYTHING I read says your drive won't boot without it. Mine didn't have one. I couldn't find anything on how to put one on there & I couldn't get Windows to cooperate & put the same drive configuration on that drive no matter how many times I installed Windows 10. I tried 5 times to install Windows 10 & got a different drive configuration each time & none of them matched the one that WAS on the drive when it crashed.

So, I figured 6 days & 355 hours was enough time spent, why don't I just try to restore & see what happens. I restored. Everything is back to the way it was 2 days before my crash except for 16MB partition. Things seem to be working the same as they were.

A heart felt "Thank you" to those who helped or even put good vibes into helping. I AM DONE.