I tried to completely wipe my C: drive and reinstall Windows 11 from a USB installer. The formatting process froze, so I restarted the computer. Windows appeared to reinstall successfully, and my D: drive still had its files, but the fresh installation soon became extremely slow and froze while I was installing Firefox.
After the crash, recovery tools such as SFC, DISM, and Startup Recovery did not help. I then changed several BIOS settings and tried booting the installer again. This time, Windows Setup could see my D: drive and the USB drive, but not the C: drive. BIOS did not show the SSD under SATA settings, although it appeared under the NVMe section.
I removed my RTX 4070 Super, moved the NVMe SSD from the lower motherboard slot to the upper slot, and checked the cables for my other drive. Since then, the installer sometimes shows a purple screen, while disconnecting the other drive results in a black screen. Recovery tools are also unreliable, and DiskPart now lists the NVMe drive with an unknown file system.
My system has a Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE motherboard, an NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super, and an ADATA SX6000PNP M.2 NVMe SSD. Could the SSD have failed, or could this be a broader hardware problem? Should I stop troubleshooting and have a professional test it?
3 Answers
At this point, stop changing BIOS settings and moving components around. Repeated reinstalls and disk commands can make recovery harder, especially if the SSD is intermittently failing. Reseat the NVMe drive carefully in the recommended motherboard slot, reset BIOS settings to their defaults, and test with only the essential hardware connected. If the installer still cannot consistently detect the SSD, replace or professionally test the drive before doing anything else.
A failing SSD is likely, but unstable hardware could also explain the crashes: power supply problems, overheating, memory errors, or a loose component can all cause an installation to fail. Check CPU temperatures in BIOS and run a memory test if the system becomes stable enough. You should also identify the PSU model and age. If you cannot get reliable video or consistently reach the installer, taking the machine to a repair shop is the safest option.
The NVMe SSD is the first thing I would suspect. That model is relatively old, and a drive can appear to work briefly before failing completely. Formatting may not have caused the failure; it could simply have exposed an SSD that was already becoming unreliable. Stop writing to it and test it in another computer or with a known-good replacement NVMe drive. If the drive is detected but its file system is unknown, do not format it again if you need any data from it.
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