MOBO no longer recognizing SSD holding my Windows 10 install

rhodie114

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Feb 8, 2015
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So I've got a dual drive setup right now. I've got a little ssd that holds windows 10 and a couple of games, and I've got a big disc drive that holds everything else. The disk drive still has windows 7 installed from back when it was my primary drive.
This morning I woke up and saw my computer had restarted overnight, and booted to Windows 7. I thought itt was weird, but a quick fix. I restarted, went into my UEFI setup (MOBO is an ASROCK z77) and looked for my ssd. It's no longer listed in my boot options.
I was having trouble with directx a couple weeks ago, and in the end microsoft support walked me through reinstalling windows 10. Since then, I've been getting fairly frequent freezes while on the internet, forcing me to shut down the whole system a lot of the time. I'm thinking that has something to do with my problems right now, since it seems to be a problem with the drive windows 10 is stored on. The only other thing I can think is that I got a bad update on windows 10 that bricked the drive, but I figure if something like that were going around I'd have seen it on the front page before posting this.
What do I do from here. Like I said, I don't have very much at all on the drive, and it's been giving me difficulties lately. I'm tempted to see if I can just wipe the whole thing and reinstall clean. I'll keep that in my back pocket for now though, since I'm sure there would be unforeseen consequences there.
 
Solution
Hey there, @rhodie114!

I'd recommend you start the troubleshooting by swapping the SATA cable and the SATA port connecting your SSD to the mobo. If that doesn't make it pop up in BIOS, then you should check your motherboard manufacturer's official website for any SATA controller & Chipset driver updates. While there, see if you got the latest BIOS version installed as well. By the way, have you tried resetting BIOS? It might also help you recognize the SSD properly. Just make sure you re-configure the BIOS settings afterwards (SATA mode in AHCI for the SSD & the proper boot order). You mentioned that the SSD is not in the UEFI setup, but I'd also check your Disk Management while booted into Windows 7 from the...
Hey there, @rhodie114!

I'd recommend you start the troubleshooting by swapping the SATA cable and the SATA port connecting your SSD to the mobo. If that doesn't make it pop up in BIOS, then you should check your motherboard manufacturer's official website for any SATA controller & Chipset driver updates. While there, see if you got the latest BIOS version installed as well. By the way, have you tried resetting BIOS? It might also help you recognize the SSD properly. Just make sure you re-configure the BIOS settings afterwards (SATA mode in AHCI for the SSD & the proper boot order). You mentioned that the SSD is not in the UEFI setup, but I'd also check your Disk Management while booted into Windows 7 from the secondary HDD.
It is possible that Windows 10 updates are causing this, though. If you have the Windows 10 installation media, try the Advanced Startup Options in Windows 10 as well.

Keep us posted with the troubleshooting & good luck! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
Solution