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NVME boot drive no longer seen as bootable after removal and reinstallation.

AndyW42
Level 8

First post here.  Experienced PC builder but not completely current (This one was ~4 years ago).

I converted my ROG Z390 based system from water-cooled back to air.  This involved having to replace the GPU cooler (3080 OC), CPU cooler (i7-8700K) and NVME (Corsair MP600 2TB).  Win 10 system (can't figure out the security settings to make it Win 11 capable...ug).

I took my time replacing all the coolers and while I didn't use a strap (rarely do) I was my typical cautious self with minimizing touching connectors, etc.  But I admit there is a non-zero chance I did something to the NVME, however, it is visible in the BIOS, just not bootable.  More below.

I had to remove the motherboard to mount the new CPU cooler, so that was also disturbed.

With everything plugged back in (I have multiple drives and USB devices and everything went back to the same spot...except the GPU...it was a better fit in PCIe 2 slot so it went there.

When I powered up, I was somewhat heartened by normal sounds and the "light bar" going to the green light (for boot) on the motherboard.

On the screen, however, it indicated something was corrupted with BIOS settings and needed to reboot with defaults. (sorry, I didn't screenshot the exact message).

So I rebooted, and it went directly into BIOS, not to Windows (NVME is my only bootable drive). 

Date and time in BIOS were reset to sometime in 2017, so something had definitely happened to the BIOS.  

I looked through settings and, of course, don't remember a lot of the settings meanings since I haven't built a PC in a while.  DId some reading of the manual (yep, still have it!) and some interweb searching but can't really pin down what is wrong, or a good strategy to fix it.  

Basically, the drive is showing up correctly in BIOS, as far as I can tell. But I am unsure if some setting is wrong, or there is really something wrong with the drive.  I'd like to ensure the settings are correct before I yank the drive out and put it in another desktop I have to test it.

Another option I am considering is using a Win 11 install USB to see if it can see it and see if any repair options help. 

In the end I have a recent backup I can go through the process to restore, but I don't want to reformat the MP600 if the problem is repairable or a BIOS setting that was clicked to different setting with the default settings.

TIA for any help anyone can provide.  

Best,

 

Andy

 

 

 

 

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6 REPLIES 6

inge70
Level 13

If the BIOS clock went back to 2017, that's a sign that the battery on the motherboard is empty, because you disconnected the motherboard from the power supply when you removed it.

Replace the battery, reset the BIOS and reset all settings.

If the NVME is not recognized as a boot drive, it may be due to the changed M2 slot because the Windows boot manager, which has been entered into the BIOS since Windows 10, is not there.

So just boot the PC with a Windows USB stick and do a repair install.

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Thx.  I had considered the CMOS battery at first, but it has continued to boot without resetting again, even being off overnight since I am troubleshooting(it was a 24/7 on machine before).  But your point is taken...no harm to replace it to eliminate it as an issue, so I will do so.  Then I'll try the repair option.

AndyW42
Level 8

So, I replaced the battery and reset CMOS.  No change.  Tried Windows repair option - said it found nothing to repair.

I unplugged all drives but the M.2 drive and diskpart gives me the drive as Disk 0. 

When I list vol it gives me 3 volumes  (USB I was running repair from was drive D but I unplugged it)

Volume 0    Drive C  NTFS  100MB  --> assume some type of boot partition?  

Volume 1   Drive E  NTFS    1862GB  --> Obviously the original "C" volume with my OS and data

Volume 2  Drive F   NTFS    528MB  -->  Some type of recovery partition?

As I said, not as knowledgeable on how Windows 10 and 11 configure a boot drive.  Explanations welcome.

So, I want to use BCDboot to see if that fixes it, but when reading the syntax and options, I am not sure if I should redirect the system partition to be C or E.  It feels like if I used "BCDBoot E:/Windows" (the only place I have a system folder) it will make E the boot drive.  I know BCDBoot can redirect to another drive using the /s flag, but I am not sure if that is appropriate or not or will break anything.

Any help appreciated.  Hoping to learn a lot and get more up to speed on how windows currently sets itself up.

 

If volumes 0 - 3 must be on disk 0, because that would be the boot partition, your Windows and a recovery partition.
If these partitions are on different hard drives, something is wrong.
Normally it should look like this under Diskpart:

inge70_0-1734675749427.png

my C is disk 2 and this includes volumes 2-4 (see red marking), whereby volumes 3 and 4 have NO drive letters as they are hidden and are system drives, boot partition and recovery partition.

If you have letters in this place, something is wrong.

It can of course be the case that everything here is on one NVME but Diskpart assigns it a drive letter, which is not quite correct, because the boot partition and the recovery partition normally do not have drive letters.

It is correct that if all remaining drives (SATA, NVME, etc.) are unplugged, the last remaining M2_1 is shown as disk 0.

To delete this completely, you either have to delete all visible partitions (here your volumes 1-3) in the Windows setup so that an empty unpartitioned area remains.
You select this and install Windows.

Windows automatically recreates all volumes.
If you have a backup of your data, I would therefore completely reinstall Windows.

Intel Core i7 13700K / AiO Fractal Design Lumen S36 v2 RGB / Asus Rog Strix Z790-F Gaming WIFI / Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5-5600 64GB (4x 16GB) / Asus TUF RTX 4070 ti OC / 4x Samsung 980 pro 1TB / Seasonic Prime GX 850 W Gold / Fractal Design Meshify 2 Lite RGB Black TG Light Tint / Monitor AOC Q27G2S/EU (WQHD)

Thx much!  I understand more fully now.  My diskpart data is different however.

Disk 0 = M.2 (only drive in system)

Disk 1 = win10 boot USB

My volumes however, are not like yours. And it apparently won't let me upload a picture, so....

 

Volume 0  C    NTFS  Partition  100MB Healthy

Volume 1  E.    NTFS Partition  1862GB Healthy

Volume 2. F.    NTFS Partition  528MB  Healthy

Volume 3. D.   FAT32 Removable 29GB Healthy. <-- clearly the win10 USB.

I suppose a reinstall may be in order if another tool can't stitch the 0,1,2 volumes back together.  Thx so much for the continued help.

 

 

AndyW42
Level 8

Success!   

bcdboot e:\windows /s C: /f UEFI worked!!! 

I have my system back.