BIOS won't recognise my new or old SSD boot drive


  1. Posts : 4
    Windows 10
       #1

    BIOS won't recognise my new or old SSD boot drive


    Hi,

    I've got a problem where my BIOS won't recognise my new or old SSD boot drive.

    My laptop currently has two hard drives in it: a 500Gb SSD (OS Drive/C Drive) and a 2Tb HDD (data drive only). My OS Drive had been running out of space and I wanted to upgrade it to a bigger version so I purchased a 2Tb SSD.

    I used Macrium Reflect Free to clone the 500Gb SSD drive with the new 2Tb SSD connected via a USB 3.0 hard drive dock. This seemed to go well and after Macrium had completed the process, the new drive was visible in windows and folder structure looked to have been replicated exactly.

    I powered down my laptop, opened it up and replaced the old SSD drive with the new one from the dock. I powered my laptop back up into BIOS mode but only the old data drive was visible.

    So I thought ok this is what the Macrium rescue disk I created is for. So I shut down and booted from the rescue disk. I clicked on Fix Windows Boot Problems but no disks appear in the subsequent pop-up dialogue box.

    So I thought ok start again. So I powered down and switched the SSD's again to put my old one back in. But now the BIOS doesn't recognise my old SSD either! So now I don't know what to do.

    I tried accessing the SSD via the dock on a different pc to check if the drive got corrupted somehow but the drive is accessible and all files and folders still appear intact and as they were immediately after the clone process.

    This is the video I followed up to the 12 minute mark where instead of rebooting and going straight into BIOS, I powered down my laptop and switched the hard drives around as I wasn't sure if I would be able to set the new SSD as boot drive while the old drive was still in the laptop and the new one was docked via USB:

    UPDATE: Using Macrium Reflect Free to Clone Windows to a Bootable M.2 SSD - YouTube

    I followed all applicable previous steps for cloning to a larger capacity drive including cloning and re-ordering of partitions and allocation of disk space.

    I only have 2 internal hard drive ports and one is already in use with a data HDD.

    What can I do?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 423
    Windows 10
       #2

    Do you have an up to date system image of your ssd drive before you did the cloning/removed the old ssd? If so you could put the new ssd in the machine, format it and then restore your system image to it. See if the machine recognises the new SSD after it's been formatted. Have you checked if your machine will take a 2TB ssd? I think some are limited to 1TB but there may be a way round it.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 4
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Hi Hazel, I only have the original drive, the new cloned drive and the Macrium reflect rescue disk.
    Would that have a system image on it?
    The machine should take a 2 TB hard drive yes. It came with a 2TB HDD anyway.
    I've just tried the HDD drive in the port I'd been using for the SSD's and it recognized it fine. So at least there is nothing wrong with the SATA port.
    I also tried resetting my BIOS to optimized defaults but no joy.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 423
    Windows 10
       #4

    No you'd know if you'd made a system image. Usually advisable to do that (saved to an external hdd) before doing anything - then you can restore everything as before if something goes wrong.

    So your original SSD drive still contains everything when you plug it into another computer and the files are accessible. Is that right? If so you haven't lost everything, but your computer won't recognise the SSD drive. Did you check to see if the drive was full or the same as before you did the clone? It may be possible you set the clone to go to the wrong drive (ie onto the original drive) and then if the drive was full it may not be recognised (wild guess). Check if the amount of space left on the original drive is the same as before you started.

    Are you sure you cloned with macrium rather than imaging or back up? If the new drive is an image rather than a clone then it won't work - it will just be a back up drive for restoring to the original drive using the macrium disk. So that may be why the new drive doesn't work.

    You could try resetting the bios to original factory settings then reinstalling the original hard drive and see if it recognises it.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 4
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #5

    Hi Hazel
    Yes my original SSD drive still contains everything when I dock it to another computer and the files are accessible.
    My original drive does not appear to have been altered in any way, all my files are still there. I should think that if I had set the clone to go to the wrong drive then both drives should be empty? As the new SSD I was cloning to was brand new and empty. However both drives show all files exactly the same so the clone must have been executed correctly.
    Yes I definitely cloned with Macrium.
    I followed the steps in the below video up to the 12 minute mark where instead of rebooting and going straight into BIOS, I powered down my laptop and switched the hard drives around as I wasn't sure if I would be able to set the new SSD as boot drive while the old drive was still in the laptop and the new one was docked via USB

    UPDATE: Using Macrium Reflect Free to Clone Windows to a Bootable M.2 SSD - YouTube

    I recently tried resetting my BIOS to optimized defaults but it still won't recognize either SSD
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 423
    Windows 10
       #6

    Someone else more experienced in Macrium may know more than me. You said it recognised your data drive and your ssd is recognised in another laptop so a mystery to me. There must be something happened to both ssd drives to stop them being recognised.

    I’m no expert here but I wonder if you tried taking the battery out and unplugging then holding the on button down for about 20 seconds. I think it’s called a hard reset. Discharges the cmos battery that powers the bios so the bios might then recognise the ssd drive.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 4
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #7

    Hi Hazel

    It's a mystery to me too. I haven't tried a hard reset like that. It seems risky and would it do anything different than a factory reset?

    - - - Updated - - -

    - - - Updated - - -

    I've now resorted to formatting the new SSD wiping it completaly intending to install Windows again and start a fresh.

    Yet BIOS still.. Does not... Recognise the SSD...

    So to recap.

    After the clone and switch
    BIOS won't recognise the new cloned 2TB SSD
    BIOS won't recognise my original 500G SSD anymore
    BIOS will happily recognise my old 2TB HDD in either SATA port.
    BIOS won't even recognise the new 2TB SSD after it has been fully formatted.

    Does anyone have any ideas on why my BIOS is being like this and how I could possibly fix it?
    Last edited by sirithaniel; 15 Jun 2021 at 15:42. Reason: Duplicate
      My Computer


 

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