My PC randomly freezes and then boots straight into the BIOS, where no bootable drive is detected. After several hard restarts, Windows eventually loads again, but the problem returns later. I suspect the SSD may be intermittently disappearing, although it is only about a year old. I updated the Seagate FireCuda 530 1TB to the latest firmware, and SeaTools reports that the drive is healthy. The system uses a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RX 9070 XT, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, and a Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX V2 motherboard. What else should I check?
2 Answers
Since the firmware is already current and SeaTools found no obvious problem, back up anything important immediately and keep an eye on the drive in the motherboard BIOS and Windows event logs. If the SSD disappears again, see whether it is also missing from the BIOS after a cold shutdown. If it continues happening in another slot or system, the drive is likely defective despite passing the health check, and an RMA or replacement would be appropriate.
That behavior is consistent with the SSD temporarily dropping off the system. SeaTools can report the drive as healthy even when the controller or connection is intermittently failing. Check that the NVMe drive is firmly seated, remount it with the proper standoff and heatsink, and test another M.2 slot if your board has one. A complete power-off can also reset a drive that has become stuck, which explains why repeated restarts may not immediately help.
I already updated the firmware and ran SeaTools, but I’ll reseat the drive and test another slot before replacing it.