Reboot & Select Proper Boot Device

[Vectraat]

So I was playing a game when my computer froze. It eventually rebooted and I was greeted with:

"Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media In selected Boot device and press a key."

-So I went into the bios and I didn't see my SSD listed as a boot device. "Samsung 500 GB 860 EVO" and It's maybe a year old if that. A bit strange if It's dead.

-Took the side panel off to see if it was properly connected and it seems fine. Cleaned out the computer too--not that I had high hopes that it would make a difference. 
-"Boot Selection Mode" was set to "UEFI and Legacy"
-"Storage Boot Option Control" was set to "Legacy Only"
I tried switching around options in both to see if I could get my SSD to show and nada. 
Though, I really have no idea what I'm doing with those 2 options. I think I recall making a change in those options before many years ago to fix this kinda issue with a previous SSD.

Uh, I have no idea what to do at this point. I've tried following some guides, but can't think of anything else to do other than to try and recover Windows somehow or I dunno, is there a way for me to test to see if this SSD is dead somehow? Also, can reboots screw up HDDs / Possibly cause data corruption?

[t4ils]

Sounds like it is dead if it's not being detected. Try switching SATA ports on the motherboard or plugging the SSD into a different PC (if available).

[Vectraat]

Yeah, I'm really not that technically inclined and I've had some bad insomnia over the past week so my brain is literally potato mode right now.

I can maybe switch to a different SATA port, should be easy enough I guess. As for plugging the SSD into a different computer--all I have is a laptop. How's that gonna work? 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

I'd try a couple of different SATA plugs first, to make sure it's not a bad SATA controller.  If that doesn't help, it's most likely the drive itself

I don't read many reports of these drives failing, so if that's what happened you were extremely unlucky.

Based on your description of the events, my gut feeling tells me that the SSDs controller died, which caused the PC to hang. 

If switching SATA ports doesn't help, I'd suggest trying to connect the SSD to another PC.  With only a laptop in the house that's going to be a problem, so perhaps you could ask a friend to plug it into his/her PC?  Bonus points if the friend knows his/her way around PC hardware.

If another PC also doesn't detect the SSD, it's pretty safe to assume it's dead.  Thankfully it's still under warranty. 

 

 

 

As for reboots causing data corruption: if the PC freezes/hangs while the OS is writing data to a HDD/SSD, you could have a corruption indeed.  But that should result in an unreadable file or perhaps a bluescreen while trying to boot the OS (if the corrupt file is an important system file) at worst, not an entire drive that's not detected in the BIOS.

[Vectraat]

I actually just realized that I have a HDD enclosure that accepts SSDs, so I just removed the SSD from my desktop and put it into the enclosure and connected it to my laptop via USB, but I don't see the drive under "This PC" just my OS / C drive. Is there something I need to do to get it to show up?

 

Edit: 

Says on the back of the portable HDD enclosure that it will work with "2.5" / 3.5" SATA HDD/SSD" and I have a "Samsung 500 GB 860 EVO", so it should work I'd think.

Don't I need to initialize the SSD under Disk Management? That's what I need to do to get my HDDs to show up, but if I do that, it would wipe the SSD, I'd think, because under Disk Management, there is a disk there that's "Not initialized" which is the SSD.

[Xcoool]

37 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

I actually just realized that I have a HDD enclosure that accepts SSDs, so I just removed the SSD from my desktop and put it into the enclosure and connected it to my laptop via USB, but I don't see the drive under "This PC" just my OS / C drive. Is there something I need to do to get it to show up?

 

Edit: 

Says on the back of the portable HDD enclosure that it will work with "2.5" / 3.5" SATA HDD/SSD" and I have a "Samsung 500 GB 860 EVO", so it should work I'd think.

Don't I need to initialize the SSD under Disk Management? That's what I need to do to get my HDDs to show up, but if I do that, it would wipe the SSD, I'd think, because under Disk Management, there is a disk there that's "Not initialized" which is the SSD.

It is the easiest way to fix disk unknown not initialized issue. Just right-click "My Computer" > "Manage" to run Disk Management, Here, right-click the hard drive and click "Initialize Disk". In the dialog box, select the disk(s) to initialize and choose MBR or GPT partition style.Initialization wont remove any data.After that you should be able to access data on the drive and use it again as boot drive.(assuming it will initialize correctly)

[Vectraat]

27 minutes ago, Xcoool said:

It is the easiest way to fix disk unknown not initialized issue. Just right-click "My Computer" > "Manage" to run Disk Management, Here, right-click the hard drive and click "Initialize Disk". In the dialog box, select the disk(s) to initialize and choose MBR or GPT partition style.Initialization wont remove any data.After that you should be able to access data on the drive and use it again as boot drive.(assuming it will initialize correctly)

You SURE that won't wipe the SSD?

 

Also, I just tried plugging the HDD enclosure via USB into my desktop to see if my PC would list the SSD as a boot, it didn't. Then I disconnected a HDD and put the SSD into that HDD's slot / connected it with the same SATA/Power cable that HDD was using (which was showing as a boot), but the SSD isn't showing as a boot. 

Do I not need to change these options at all?

Under "Boot Selection Mode" I see:
-UEFI and Legacy

-Legacy Only

-UEFI Only
It's currently on "UEFI and Legacy" No idea if that was the default setting was as I'm aware sometimes these settings can change randomly. I had that happen to be before.

And "Storage Boot Option Control" I see:
-Legacy First
-Disabled
-Legacy Only

-Legacy First

-UEFI FIrst
It's currently on "Legacy First"

Edit:

https://www.easeus.com/resource/retrieving-data-from-disk-unknown-not-initialized.html
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/will-a-disk-initialisation-erase-the-data-on-my/2c6e261c-0d1d-473a-b17f-8dfe8caf9f4d

 

"Will initializing hard disk make data unrecoverable? Since initializing hard disk will lead to a blank or even garbled disk, with failing or failed circuitry or perhaps you might just have some corrupted data."

"If you initialize the drive, you will lose the data."
"What does initialize disk mean?
Initialize disk means to erase the data on a disk and make it usable."

[Xcoool]

1 minute ago, Vectraat said:

You SURE that won't wipe the SSD?

 

Also, I just tried plugging the HDD enclosure via USB into my desktop to see if my PC would list the SSD as a boot, it didn't. Then I disconnected a HDD and put the SSD into that HDD's slot / connected it with the same SATA/Power cable that HDD was using (which was showing as a boot), but the SSD isn't showing as a boot. 

Do I not need to change these options at all?

Under "Boot Selection Mode" I see:
-UEFI and Legacy

-Legacy Only

-UEFI Only
It's currently on "UEFI and Legacy" No idea if that was the default setting was as I'm aware sometimes these settings can change randomly. I had that happen to be before.

And "Storage Boot Option Control" I see:
-Legacy First
-Disabled
-Legacy Only

-Legacy First

-UEFI FIrst
It's currently on "Legacy First"

It wont wipe anything without asking you.

Now about boot options.Boot selection mode UEFI and Legacy is fine as you can boot in both modes.

 

Storage boot option:

Legacy first means it will try to boot first in legacy mode than in UEFI.

UEFI first means it try try to boot first in UEFI mode than in Legacy.

Other 2 are pretty self explanatory.

 

If you aren't sure what kind of windows installation you have leave as you have it now.(UEFI windows installation will  boot in Legacy mode,but not vice versa)