"Reboot and Select proper boot device"

gillmanjr

Member
Hey, so this morning I turned my PC on briefly to check something, right before I was about to turn it back off and leave for work it completely froze up on me, to the point that I couldn't even bring up task manager or anything. It was completely unresponsive. I ended up just holding the power button and shutting it down because I needed to leave. When I got home a little while ago and turned it on, all I got was a black screen with...

"Reboot and Select proper boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"

This is literally the first issue I have ever had with this PC since I built it a little over 4 years ago. I have already searched online a little and tried changing the boot priorities in the BIOS and a few other things to get into Windows, but nothing is working. My boot drive is a Samsung 970 evo NVME. I'm starting to think the drive has crapped out but I'm having a hard time believing that a Samsung SSD just died after 4 years of use with absolutely no previous issues.

Any help would be appreciated. Is there anything else I can try? If its true that my NVME failed, I am most likely going to build a new system. I know that may sound drastic but I was considering it anyway. This would be just the excuse I need.

Also, one additional question: if my NVME boot drive is bad and I were to re-install a fresh copy of windows 10 onto another SSD (an old one I have that is not being used) will I still be able to access everything on my other drives without having to re-format them? I know I've done this before but I can't remember...
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
If you have other drives in the system its possible the drive that the boot files were put on went bad, they weren't necessarily put on the NVME drive. When you installed windows the last time did you have the other drives attached to the system? If they were attached, most likely the boot files was placed on one of them. The only way to test that is to connect the nvme to another system to test, or if you can get an an adapter such as this to connect to another system.

https://www.amazon.com/SSK-Aluminum...prefix=usb+to+nvme+adapter,aps,96&sr=8-5&th=1

You have a 50/50 shot of it being your ssd or one of the other drives.
 

gillmanjr

Member
I can't remember if my other hard drives were connected when I built this system over 4 years ago. I have the 500GB Samsung NVME that I installed windows on, two 500GB SSDs in RAID for games only (mostly steam games) and a 1TB 7200RPM Seagate drive that I use for my personal files (multimedia, documents, etc). To my knowledge none of the windows files are on any of the drives other than the NVME.

So what if I were to grab one of my older SSDs that I have (I have a 240GB SSD sitting here), put it in, and install a fresh copy of windows 10 on it? If I were to do that will I be able to access the other drives without having to format them? I am asking this because I haven't backed up those files in a while and want to get them. I will probably end up building a new system straight away but I at least want to grab those files and put them on my external drive that I have.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
I haven't worked with raid for a very long time. Not sure if windows will detect the raid set, you may have to install the raid driver. But as long as one of those drives hasn't failed then you should be able to view your files.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
If I were to do that will I be able to access the other drives without having to format them?
Most likely. The RAID driver usually installs with the chipset driver, since you don't need it for the boot device you don't have to integrate it into the installation medium.

I had that issue happen with a work PC, hang at shutdown, hard power off, not booting back up being able to use the device. If you 100% don't see the EVO in BIOS anymore as a detected device then it's likely hardware instead of the file system. If you can still see device parameters then you might get away with a fsck/chkdsk or repair install. It all depends.
 

gillmanjr

Member
I haven't worked with raid for a very long time. Not sure if windows will detect the raid set, you may have to install the raid driver. But as long as one of those drives hasn't failed then you should be able to view your files.
I don't really care about the raid drives either. Like I said those drives are exclusively for games and pretty much all steam games. All I really care about is being able to access the 7200RPM HDD that I have, that's the drive that has files on it that would be unrecoverable for me. I have some of them backed up to Onedrive and some on an external drive, but not all.

I actually ordered a new system last night from Newegg. Went with an MSI Mag Tomahawk Z790, i5-13600k, 32Gb Dominator DDR5-5600, and a new Samsung 990 Pro NVME for windows. I'll probably order a second NVME as a dedicated gaming drive but for now I just wanted to get this system up and running. As long as I can plug my old 7200 HDD in and be able to access those files ill be happy and nothing will have been lost.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
As I said, it all depends on if the windows boot files were placed on the nvme boot drive or on one of the other drives, it does happen. That is why when installing windows, you always only want to have the boot drive connected, nothing else.
 

gillmanjr

Member
As I said, it all depends on if the windows boot files were placed on the nvme boot drive or on one of the other drives, it does happen. That is why when installing windows, you always only want to have the boot drive connected, nothing else.
I will do that when I build this new system. I'm only going to have the new 990 NVME connected when I do the windows install.

FYI I still see all of my hard drives in the BIOS, including the NVME.

Edit: I just realized something. Over the years I have had SATA cables disconnect from my hard drives while working inside the case. This has happened to both the raid drives and the HDD on separate occasions. In all instances I was still able to load windows, I just didn't see those drives listed or have access to the files. So there can't be boot files on those drives. Either the NVME itself went bad or, is there a possibility that the M.2 port on my MOBO went bad? Worth it trying to switch port?
 
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gillmanjr

Member
Most likely. The RAID driver usually installs with the chipset driver, since you don't need it for the boot device you don't have to integrate it into the installation medium.

I had that issue happen with a work PC, hang at shutdown, hard power off, not booting back up being able to use the device. If you 100% don't see the EVO in BIOS anymore as a detected device then it's likely hardware instead of the file system. If you can still see device parameters then you might get away with a fsck/chkdsk or repair install. It all depends.
Do I need to use my windows 10 install thumb drive to run the check disk or repair install from?
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
You can try switching ports. Sounds like you need to get the locking SATA cables so they don't come off.
 

gillmanjr

Member
You can try switching ports. Sounds like you need to get the locking SATA cables so they don't come off.
They are locking, the locking tabs don’t work anymore. I won’t need SATA cables ever again starting with this new build! Thank god. M.2 drives only from here forward. Given how many Corsair controllers I have in the back of my case to support all the RGB and fan control, being able to get rid of all 3.5" drives and those associated cables is really going to help clean up my case. I’m looking forward to it.
 

gillmanjr

Member
So I tried running check disk from my windows 10 install USB thumbdrive, didn't work. I also tried the "repair" option, that didn't work either. Nothing worked. I even tried scanning and running checkdisk from the cmd prompt and nothing would work. I have to assume that my 970 EVO crapped out.

But anyway, I ordered a 10 dollar SATA to USB dongle from Amazon just for the hell of it and I was able to connect my HDD to my laptop and get everything off of it! So all good. I didn't lose anything other my steam games and software that is all re-downloadable after my new build it done. Now just waiting for everything to arrive...

Thanks for the help.
 
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