Can't Boot Into Windows 11 After Installing Water Pump

[Yoshi Moshi]

Here are the specifications of my PC:

 

MOBO: ASUS ROG X570 E Gaming

CPU: AMD 3900X

GPU: Nvidia 3090

Memory 32 GB

OS: Windows 11 (I'm not sure which version but I actively kept up with updates and previously had Windows 10 Home before I upgraded to Windows 11)

SATA Device 1: SDD

SATA Device 2: Optical Drive

M.2 Device 1: SSD

 

The water pump in my computer was failing, so I replaced it. Otherwise my computer was working fine. I did not reseat any device while replacing the pump, or disconnect any other device. Now I can't boot into Windows 11 from my M.2 device.

 

I successfully get pass the POST and it went straight into BIOS. All of my SATA and M.2 devices show up in BIOS under boot configuration where you can set the boot priorities. The correct amount of RAM shows up in the BIOS. The correct CPU shows up.

 

I tried trouble shooting using several different methods.

 

I plugged into the USB port a Windows 10 Home Install device that I purchased at Wallmart. When I try to reinstall windows but keep all of my files - It wouldn't let me, it said you can't install windows 10 from a USB drive. Weird.

I tried using the Repair PC option. No OSs appeared so I went into advanced options. I tried doing a system restore but it wouldn't let me. I tried doing a System Image Recovery, but it wouldn't let me. Interestingly enough when I try to search for a drive in this interface, I'm able to open up file explorer. I can open up the M.2 device in file explorer and go through the files. All the files that I had on drive before seem to be there, including Windows files and folders. So it seems like all of my files are on the M.2 device. I tried doing automatic repair, but it wouldn't run.

 

I tried creating a Windows 11 Installation Media on a USB device. I plugged in the device into a USB port and booted from that. When I tried to reinstall Windows 11 but keep all of my files, it won't let me. It tells me that my PC doesn't meet the minimum requirements... which is strange because it does and I had Windows 11 on this computer and it was working fine without any problems.

 

When I open up the command prompt using the repair my pc option with either the Windows 10 USB installation media or the Windows 11 installation media, I'm able to open up the command prompt. I tried the following commands

diskpart

select disk 0

list vol

When I did this, there were no volumes with an "EFI" label, I think this is my issue?

 

I try the following commands on the M.2 device in command prompt.

bootrec/FixBoot

It says it completed successfully.

ren BCD BCD.bak

It cannot find the file, I think this is an issue.

 

Thanks for any help you can provide. This is getting really frustrating. I think my issue is that I don't have a EFI partition on my drive? I'm not entirely sure.

 

Thanks for any help! Let me know what other steps I can take or things I can do to better determine what's wrong with my computer.

[NumLock21]

For your Asus board, go into boot priority mode where you see the list of device that can be selected to boot. Do you have Windows boot manager. No, then that may be the reason why it's not booting. Try to do a repair on that or use automatic repair.

[Yoshi Moshi]

Hey thanks so much for the help!

This is what I get when I don't press any buttons to get into BIOS

 

It does not look like I have a windows boot manager. Here's some pictures to help.

 

I don't have the option to do an Automatic Repair when I have either Windows 10 or Windows 11 USB installation media in my computer

This is what I have

All I have is "Startup Repair" Odd. When I try doing this, it doesn't seem to work. This is what I have.

 

Thanks for all the help! I appreciate it. What else do you think I can do to help troubleshoot this issue?

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Troubleshooting

[Yoshi Moshi]

Hello,

 

So I figured out what was wrong with my computer. I guess while I was rotating my computer around to try and get the air bubbles out, one of the data cables for the SATA SSD came undone. I plugged it back in and my computer booted up fine.

 

This is a bit concerning for me, because I thought that my computer was booting from the M.2. All of my files and apparently the windows files are on my M.2 SSD. It seems that the UEFI partition was stored on my SATA SSD? Does anyone know how I can fix this.

 

I believe Disk 2 to be SATA SSD, and Disk 1 to be the EFI system thingy that I need on my SSD so I can boot from Windows from my M.2 SSD.

 

Really weird and I'm not sure how this happened. But it would explain the symptoms I was having and how this issue came about from me replacing the pump.

[Yoshi Moshi]

BUMP