Samsung 850 EVO 500Gb SSD disappeared after boot, BIOS won't recognise SATA ports empty

siyath_ · Oct 5, 2016

Hi there TH-folk!

I built my own computer a few months back, and everything's been running just perfect until this weekend. On Friday I powered down my computer, just a normal shutdown in which everything seemed to go as well as ever, got back home on Sunday only to find out that the computer booted to BIOS, but no further because it couldn't find my SSD.

The problem:

All my SATA ports show that nothing's present in any of them no matter what I seem to do. The boot order in BIOS shows AHCI hard-disk and all the other variants as well. The one mentioned there being my primary choice.

What I have tried so far (System specs after these) :

- Resetting the CMOS.

- Flashing the BIOS to the newest version

- Replacing the power cord from the SSD to the PSU with a brand new one.

- Replacing the data cord from the SSD to the MB with a brand new one.

- Switching between SATA ports 1 and 2.

- Making sure AHCI is set in the config instead of RAID.

- Switching boot order mode between AHCI and AHCI + legacy.

- Trying to boot from a bootable Win 10 USB that I used to originally install Windows 10 Pro N, got stuck on spinning dots on a black background (let it be there for good 20-25 minutes and nothing happened).

- Resetted BIOS to defaults with F6 from the settings.

And none of this has put me one step closer to getting the system to recognise the SSD, which is my only HD.

System Specs:

Motherboard - MSI Z170A GAMING M5 (BIOS version B1 that was released on 2016-09-22)

CPU - Intel i7-6700k Skylake

PSU - EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2

Memory - 32Gb (4x8) Kingston HyperX Fury Black (DDR4, 2666 MHz, CL15)

Graphics - Radeon R9 390 GAMING 8G

OS - Windows 10 Pro N

So... what should I do next? The BIOS interface that I'm running is the MSI UEFI Click BIOS 5.

SuperSoph_WD · Oct 5, 2016

Welcome to the community, @siyath_!

This sounds pretty unfortunate! Could you get your hands on another HDD where you could install Windows and see if you would be able to get it detected by your system? You have done a great job with the troubleshooting so far, though!

Another thing could also try is plugging the SSD to another computer (if you have access to one), to check how it would get recognized there.
However, in order to find what might be the cause of your issues you will need to find access to another PC and/or borrow a spare HDD to test in your system.
Meanwhile, you could also try re-seating all the connections inside your PC case and re-plug everything again. Making sure there are no loose cables that could be causing this.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted.
SuperSoph_WD

siyath_ · Oct 5, 2016

Hmm, I've got Macbook Pro in use as well, but I don't have a SATA/USB converter to check if I could just plug it in that one and see if it recognises it. Not to mention, well... it's a Mac, so I could already expect problems with the format of the SSD possibly being recognised by it.

I could of course try to take it over to a friend and try to plug it in their PC internally as just a secondary drive and check if their BIOS recognises it. That'd sure bring some new information on the table. And no, I don't have an another HD unfortunately.

I'll do that and get back to this as soon as I can. Thank you for your quick response. : )

siyath_ · Oct 5, 2016

Ok, so I took the SSD to a friend of mine, and plugged it internally in (replaced his HD, so it wasn't parallel to anything). Not very suprisingly it didn't boot into Windows that's installed on the SSD, but I got to the BIOS just okay and in there the drive was recognised. It couldn't boot it to Windows though, but I strongly think this is because his computer is a bit older and is setup for IDE or RAID config.

So we've established that the SSD is okay, or at least another computer's BIOS sees it.

I also switched my PSU's SATA cable to SATA2 from SATA1 outlet, but that also did absolutely nothing.

Every other component seems to work just perfectly, BIOS recognises all plugged in components in the Board Explorer, and returns correct ports in the diagram if I switch something to say different USB-ports or something.

I tried to find specific BIOS settings for that SSD but couldn't find any from Samsung's site at least. Could it be that there's simply something still off in my settings - I just don't know where to look at anymore?

siyath_ · Oct 6, 2016

SuperSoph_WD :

Just quoting you to ping you for attention - since I managed to amaze-brain myself into pressing Answer instead of Reply...

SuperSoph_WD · Oct 6, 2016

Hey there again, @siyath_!

I'd recommend checking your motherboard manufacturer's official website for any SATA controller & Chipset driver updates.
You mentioned that all your SATA ports don't show any SATA devices being plugged, so I'd strongly recommend checking if you have actually enabled the SATA ports in the BIOS settings as well.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
SuperSoph_WD

siyath_ · Oct 6, 2016

SuperSoph_WD :

These sound stupid questions even to me, but how exactly am I supposed to install any SATA controller & chipset drivers without an OS? Some sort of USB DOS boot thing - if it even exists anymore? Updating the BIOS itself was easy enough by just flashing it, but that's the extent of my understanding what new stuff you can actually put there right now. And I've been updating the drivers regularly (mainly via MSI Live Update which prompts me every time there's a new version of any of that stuff) so they should've been pretty much up to date back when this happened.

That, and how am I supposed to "enable" the SATA ports? I've been browsing through the BIOS for three days now, and I really can't see any option to specifically enable or disable them.

SuperSoph_WD · Oct 6, 2016

Since you regularly update them through the mobo's utility, have you had any recent Windows 10 updates? Sometimes, they could replace the hardware drivers and install some generic and a bit outdated ones. With your motherboard, you should have been given a Drivers & Utilities disk. You can use it to re-install the drivers. However, you need to be booted into Windows first. Have you tried running the Windows Repair options from the installation disk?
I'd recommend you to give it a try and check if your SATA drives would get recognized there, at least.
In the BIOS, look for SATA Hot Plug and check if either enable/disable will help you recognize the SATA drives.
In case you haven't tried this already, power down your rig and reseat every single connection inside it. Make sure everything is mounted properly and there are no loose cables.

SuperSoph_WD

siyath_ · Oct 8, 2016

SuperSoph_WD :

I'm pretty sure there was an update right around those times, cannot be 100% sure though. I keep updated drivers to all the components on a flash drive since I don't use optical drives at all (don't have any even installed in the rig, relying solely on USB drives and the Internet), but like you said - that'd require being able to boot into Windows first.

I tried the Windows Repair from the USB drive I originally installed the Win10 from, and even though everything seemed excruciatingly slow, it eventually got into the choice of repairing the install, but it all ended into an error message where the utility said the HD has been locked and thus could not be accessed.

Now, is this just it's normal way of saying it couldn't detect it or is there something else going on? The only other thing that comes to mind is some really nasty malware or virus that could somehow lock down the HD. I do run anti-virus and anti-malware softwares and didn't notice anything suspicious before the day the HD disappeared.

SuperSoph_WD :

Tried, didn't help unfortunately.

SuperSoph_WD :

Been done as well, and like I said before, all the other components seem to register well within the BIOS.

Running out of ideas here. : /

SuperSoph_WD · Oct 10, 2016

Hey there again, @siyath_!

This definitely sounds unfortunate.

You should try booting into Windows Advanced options through the installation media again and use the command prompt line to manually list some commands that hopefully will resolve the booting issue with Windows. You need to type them one after the other in this order:
bootrec /RebuildBcd
bootrec /fixMbr
bootrec /fixboot
If you need a more detailed tutorial, check this one.

I hope this unlocks the drive you are currently booting from.
Keep me posted.
SuperSoph_WD

siyath_ · Oct 12, 2016

SuperSoph_WD :

Did all this as well, certainly didn't help. Which kinda makes sense, since it doesn't see the SSD at all, how would it able to fix it's boot partitions? I also ran

XML:

bootsect /nt60 SYS

Which returned "The system partition was not found: The requested system device cannot be found."

And

XML:

bootsect /nt60 ALL

Which a bit misleadingly did "repair" the bootcode, but the code in question was the one on the USB which I booted from (which now recided in C:\, being the current boot media) which was never the issue to begin with.

None of the other Advanced Options choices managed to do anything either.

So practically the only thing I haven't tried is buying any SATA Express compatible thingamabob and check if the BIOS registers it at all.

All of the actions with the USB booted Windows install/adv.options were extremely slow (and I mean like 30 minutes to even boot into the language select menu and 30 more to get to system repair menu and so on). The USB itself is a fast flash drive and I tried both USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports with no improvement to the speed - which certainly wasn't the issue when I first installed Windows from the that same USB drive.

It would highly suggest to me that the only culprit here is the motherboard? Does this information here sound to you like you'd agree with me? Open to any suggestions, but I'm pretty much leaning towards RMAing the motherboard and building the whole computer again. I'd like to be sure though.

SuperSoph_WD · Oct 12, 2016

This looks like quite the struggle, @siyath_! Unfortunately, I also suspect that the issue is most probably coming from the motherboard. If it's still covered, contact the manufacturer's customer support or the reseller's and send your RMA request. However, I'd still recommend finding another working HDD from somewhere to test it in your system. This will help us determine if the issue is 100% coming from the mobo itself. However, there's no other explanation really. It's either the mobo altogether or its SATA ports. Either way, RMA-ing it is a good idea.

Good luck! Hope I was able to help out even a little bit.

SuperSoph_WD

siyath_ · Oct 12, 2016

SuperSoph_WD :

You've been a great help, thank you! I'll contact the reseller today and talk with them about the issue. All the parts are still covered and luckily bought from the same reseller, so I don't have to call around much. I think I'll still do what you suggested and before RMA-ing the motherboard buy a new SSD and try what the BIOS says of it.

Thanks once again, I'll still note here after I get all this into working order again what was the thing to do, so that if anyone else has the exact same problems, they can save themselves some time and trouble.

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