I recently moved to a new place, and now I can't access my SSD on my PC. I have an HDD with Windows installed and an SSD that I use as my primary drive, running on an MSI project zero motherboard. Usually, when I've had issues with the SSD not booting and the computer defaults to the HDD, I've been able to fix it by switching to CSM and AHCI in the BIOS. However, right now, after I save those settings and reboot, my monitor shows 'no signal' indefinitely, and I end up with a green light on my motherboard. I then have to press the CMOS button to restart the whole process. Despite this, when I boot from the HDD, I can see my SSD in disk management, and it's healthy and functional. I can even access the files on it, but it doesn't show up in the BIOS anymore. There haven't been any changes to my settings since moving; everything was physically moved without issue. If I can't get the SSD working again, I need to recover about two years' worth of music projects stored on it.
3 Answers
It might be that your SSD is experiencing issues, or perhaps there's a bad SATA cable involved. If the BIOS is only seeing it intermittently, that's a sign something isn’t quite right. Check the SMART parameters of the drive to see if there’s any indication it’s failing. And make sure you’re checking the ‘storage’ section in the BIOS instead of just the ‘boot’ section; the storage area will show all connected drives regardless of their bootability.
Given that moving can sometimes shake things up, you might want to try reseating the SATA cables, or if you have an NVMe SSD, reseat the drive itself. Sometimes connections can get jostled loose. Also, consider downloading CrystalDiskInfo to check the health of your SSD. If the BIOS has updates available, that could also improve how it interacts with your drives.
It sounds like there could be a few issues at play. First, are you sure you only have Windows on your HDD? Because if that's the case, you should be able to access everything on your SSD without booting from it. Since you can still access the files on the SSD, just back them up somewhere else as a precaution. Also, have you checked if your SSD is securely connected? Sometimes when you move your PC, connections can get a little loose. If it's an NVMe drive, make sure it's seated properly in its slot.
Yeah, I only have Windows on my HDD. I've been using the SSD for all my files. I’ve checked the connections, and everything seems fine, but I’ll give it another look just in case.