Samsung SSD not showing up in BIOS

JCRoswell

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Jun 12, 2015
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On Tuesday Windows 10 installed an update. On Wednesday when I booted my laptop it loaded Windows normally and as it was starting up the usual background processes a pop-up appeared letting me know that the Samsung Magician app failed (my understanding is that app manages the SSD). Next thing I know the computer crashes. Now, no matter whether I boot normally or in safe mode, when I log onto Windows I get a black screen with an arrow (that's responsive). I can bring up the Task Manager. It appears only to boot using the ROM version of Windows (I hope I'm explaining that right). I've tried using a USB boot with the recovery software, but no luck there either - same results.

In the laptop BIOS there is no hard disk drive available to boot from; it just doesn't see the Samsung SSD at all. I've tried the usual: repairing the startup, running a chkdsk on the drive, restoring it to a previous restore point before it all went haywire...but nothing changes. The odd thing is if I'm at the command prompt I can look at the SSD, navigate around in it, etc. I've run diagnostics on it and the results are that everything is good. How can I access the drive via the command prompt, yet the BIOS doesn't see it? Could a Windows update have broken something? Is my drive broken in some way that the diagnostics missed? I'm at a complete loss of what to do next.

I'm trying to implement solutions from least severe to most severe. At the more severe end of things would be to buy a new SSD. (Most severe is buying a new laptop. Yikes!) Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


Laptop: HP Envy 15t-j100
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO
 

JCRoswell

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Jun 12, 2015
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Thanks for the reply. What you said makes sense. The part that doesn't make sense to me is how I am able to bootup and go to a command prompt and operate on that drive without any problems. I copied a bunch of stuff off of it (in case I have to replace it) and it acted just like it should. If it is indeed a bad drive then how can I do this? It seems to me that if the BIOS can't recognize it then I shouldn't be able to access it in any way. Of course, I could be wrong as this is getting into deeper waters than I can swim.
 

JCRoswell

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Jun 12, 2015
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Unfortunately I don't see any mention of SATA in my BIOS.

Another funny thing I noticed: if I let it boot up into Windows I can see the SSD activity via the Task Manager even though the screen is black.

I ran into discussions on the BCD file that looked like it had some possibilities, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around it enough to do anything about it.
 

JCRoswell

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Jun 12, 2015
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I finally decided just to reinstall Windows and restore from a backup image. Once I reinstalled Windows it worked fine. I didn't have to do anything at all in the BIOS. This, to me, would indicate the BIOS didn't have the problem, but Windows did (which I wasn't aware that this was even possible). Whatever the root cause it's above my pay grade and will probably never be solved. Which sucks because I'd like to know how to avoid this in the future, if possible. This is my work laptop and it is mission critical at times. I am going to work on a way to mitigate it with possibly a backup clone drive that I keep with me.

In any case I really appreciate your efforts in helping me, CountMike. Unfortunately I'm going to have to file this under "@$&! Happens" for the time being. If I'm lucky I won't get another chance to study this phenomenon.