SSD detected but won't boot

Woke up this morning, turned on my PC, and got hit with this message:
"Insert selected boot device and press a key."

I'm running a Samsung 120 GB SSD. The BIOS actually sees it, which makes me think the drive hasn't completely died yet, so the issue might be elsewhere.

Maybe it's a Windows 10 thing. I guess a random update could have run overnight and caused some kind of conflict. Wouldn't surprise me.

I updated the BIOS.
Swapped out the SATA cable and tried a different port.
Tested an old hard drive—that works fine.

What do you guys think? Is the SSD dead or is there still hope? What else should I try before I just take it to a repair shop?

Henry Stewart2 said:What do you guys think? Is this SSD totally dead, or does it still have some life left in it? Are there any last-ditch efforts I should try before I just pack it up and take it to a repair shop?

Try booting from a Linux live USB or even a DVD—just run it without installing anything. It'll give you a clear picture of where things stand. If you can actually see your files once you're in, then the drive itself isn't the culprit; the issue lies somewhere else entirely...🤷

Windows 10 still isn't detecting it, whether I plug it into this PC or another one. The BIOS sees it everywhere.

So it’s clearly not an issue with Windows, the motherboard, or any other hardware in the rig. The problem lies within the SSD itself, though it probably hasn't completely died yet.

What should my move be here? Should I take it to a repair shop or go straight to the data recovery specialists? It wouldn't be the first time a technician told someone, "It's fixed, but we had to format everything." 🙂

If you head into your BIOS, specifically under the system configuration settings, you should be able to see whether it's currently set to SATA or IDE.

SATA, it’s always been that way.

I'd say just take it in for service—especially if you're still under warranty... It’s worth it. P.S. Have you tried swapping out the SATA cable yet? Just purely as a troubleshooting step to rule it out.

Maybe check if Disk Management can actually see it and how it’s showing up. It’s possible the file table just went haywire, leaving the drive stuck in RAW format.

So, look, your BIOS is actually doing its job by telling you to > which basically means that even if the hard drive itself isn't broken, the motherboard doesn't see it as bootable. I guess you've got two main ways out of this mess: either just go ahead and do a totally fresh installation of the OS, or check your BIOS settings to see if you can toggle on CSM (Compatibility Support Module) if your board even has that option... and if you don't see CSM, you might need to dig around to see if legacy support for the disk was somehow disabled somewhere.

Honestly, this is such a massive headache for anyone who messed with their security settings or turned off compatibility modes after they had already installed Windows using an older, non-UEFI method. You could try turning all that legacy and CSM stuff back off, but then you’re stuck having to do a completely clean install of Windows using a UEFI-based installation media...

The Hard Drive is under warranty, but I suspect they'd just send it back claiming it works fine since the hardware itself is likely okay. It would be a long wait, too, and there's always that risk of them wiping my data. I've already ruled out the Hard Drive, the SATA cable, and the SATA port.

I have the CSM option in my BIOS, but toggling it on or off doesn't change anything. It's useless.

I'm not entirely sure how I installed Windows, all I know is it was recent—about six months ago—and I'm running Windows 10. I didn't make any specific settings; I just followed the prompts during an online installation onto a new Hard Drive. Everything worked perfectly for quite a while.

The PC was working fine last night. This morning, it isn't. I have no idea what happened overnight, whether it was a Windows issue or something with the BIOS.

Not only is the drive no longer bootable, but when I boot from a different Hard Drive (Windows 8.1), the files aren't visible. It doesn't even recognize the drive.

If there's a way to reinstall Windows without wiping the partition—which would mean losing all my business and personal data—then that's a solution. If that's not an option, I'm stuck.

I’ve been thinking about a few different ways we could tackle this. One idea might be to try fixing the GPT structure using this guide: https://neosmart.net/wiki/fix-mbr/.

If that doesn't do the trick, your best bet might be to plug the drive into another computer and try to pull the data off using some recovery software. I say that because things could potentially get a bit messy if we start poking around too much—since the partition structure seems to be missing, the partitions themselves aren't even showing up right now. Tools like Recuva or File Scavenger might be able to help. Honestly, I think it might be safer to try those first before you start messing with anything else on the disk.

EDIT: Oh, one more thing. When you boot up that other computer using a different drive and run Windows 8.1, can you actually see the drive listed in Disk Management? (Just hit Start >> run >> diskmgmt.msc). Because, if it isn't showing up there at all, then none of the steps I mentioned above are really going to work.

Slight progress. I used another PC to make a Windows 10 USB, then booted the problematic computer from it so I could access the recovery options.

When I try a new Windows installation while keeping my data, I get an error saying, "The disk where the Windows installation is located is locked; unlock it and try again." So, that's the issue. The disk is somehow locked.

If I select the command prompt, I can see all the files on the disk.

I found some commands that were supposed to fix this and unlock the disk, but they didn't help:
chkdsk /f /v /r /b /offlinescanandfix c:
bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

Worked 🙂 🙂 🙂

First, I went into the BIOS and switched the drive status from "Hard Drive" to "Solid state Drive." Once I rebooted, I actually saw a screen I've never encountered before—it was orange with vertical white stripes. I guess it was some kind of orange screen of death.

Then, during the boot process, I hit F11. Between the "USB 4 GB" and "UEFI 4 GB" options for that Windows 10 USB, I picked "UEFI." Under the recovery options, a new choice popped up: "exit and continue to Windows 10".

I clicked that, and finally got my PC back.

I don't really get why all that was necessary, and honestly, I don't even know exactly how I fixed it.
The first time around, I was moving away from Windows; I shouldn't have had to do any of this. They were just totally lost.