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#1
Operating System not found, SSD
Been searching for an answer for some time, but have an issue still not resolved.
My son's PC is a self built PC, upgraded to Windows 10 when Win 10 came out. No issues until recently, when the PC started freezing at odd times (night, sleeping, browser on and just sitting there, etc.) with the black screen message "An operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drives that don't contain an operating system. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart."
To get the PC back up and running, one needs to reboot and enter the bios, and not even change anything, generally just enter and exit, and then the computer works fine. Until next time. Sometimes the boot drive doesn't come up in the list of available drives. His boot drive, by the way, is an SSD.
We have run a number of diagnostic programs (including fixboot, fixmbr, rebuildBCD) and "repairing" Windows 10 via a rescue disk (no issues found), and all comes up clean. This weekend replaced his motherboard and added 16 GB of memory (he wanted more memory anyway, and was thinking the MB was the core issue). We also replaced the SATA cables to all of his hard drives at the same time. Added some additional fans for more cooling, just in case. Turned the computer on and all seemed well. Had to get Windows and MS Office components re-authorized, but that was it.
Computer was working well until this morning, when the same message came up. I'll admit, I am at a loss. The new motherboard BIOS is relatively recent, just not the latest release. All Windows updates are current.
As much as I don't suspect the SSD drive to be faulty, is this a possible failure mode of the SSD? The only things I can think of now is that his CPU is messed up (doesn't seem likely), or the SSD is failing. Can the SSD fail in such a way that it works about 1/2 the time from a startup?
If it is the SSD, we could do a clean install on a new SSD, but that requires re-installing all of his software. Hate to do that if this is not the issue. I would rather just clone the drive (Macrium), but hesitant to do that if there is a Windows problem.
Anything else I should be considering?