How in the world does one boot from USB these days?!!
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carmen617
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Not necessarily. I had a similar situation a few weeks ago and somehow the drive had wiggled out of the socket and just needed to be reseated. I stand by my recommendation that the next logical step is to open the laptop and pull the drive.
britechguy
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I am definitely far more convinced that the SSD is dead than I am of any other theory, but I'm not ruling out other possible causes, either.
But, because I always work on what I consider to be "the best working theory" the repair is in a holding pattern until a new SSD is received. If, somehow, the original were to be intact then I'd strongly encourage the owner to acquire an external enclosure and start using it as a backup drive. He's got no backup protocol of any kind in place at the moment, and is not an M365 user. A genuinely cash-strapped grad student, so I can relate (even if my time as same was over a quarter of a century ago).
But, because I always work on what I consider to be "the best working theory" the repair is in a holding pattern until a new SSD is received. If, somehow, the original were to be intact then I'd strongly encourage the owner to acquire an external enclosure and start using it as a backup drive. He's got no backup protocol of any kind in place at the moment, and is not an M365 user. A genuinely cash-strapped grad student, so I can relate (even if my time as same was over a quarter of a century ago).
Sure, it's possible... but highly unlikely.
britechguy
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On which we agree. The way these modules are inserted and held in place with a screw at one end, I have yet to encounter a loose one (and I've seen plenty).
While nothing is impossible, I prefer to deal with the probable/reasonably likely first. Without a doubt the greatest probability here is a dead SSD so I'm proceeding on that entirely reasonable assumption. Regardless of how it turns out, I will post "the end of the story." But since this client has had no backup protocol in place, were I to be able to resuscitate the SSD by some miracle, that one will become his backup drive for the time being. I am not sanguine that it will be able to be resuscitated.
xrobwx71
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Disable.
I'm with @Rigo about the missing driver. I had this exact thing happen to my PC at home. My two, brand new (month old), WD SX850X just disappeared. No trace anywhere, BIOS, DISKPART, etc. After some research, I found the driver, placed the driver on the bootable USB booted from the USB and like magic, they appeared. I did not have to re-install Windows. That was 2 years ago. No issues since.
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britechguy
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Well, we clearly have multiple possible forks in the road.
As I've said, I took one, and the one I personally think most likely to bear fruit, and will report back as events progress (or don't).
I simply cannot follow everyone's advice, and that doesn't mean that I don't value it being offered.
As I've said, I took one, and the one I personally think most likely to bear fruit, and will report back as events progress (or don't).
I simply cannot follow everyone's advice, and that doesn't mean that I don't value it being offered.
Drivers made your disk appear in BIOS/UEFI? Magic indeed
xrobwx71
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From what I remember. I turned on my PC one day, and it would not boot. I went into the BIOS, and there were no drives. I did some research on another PC, and from that, I added the drivers for the SSDs onto a bootable USB (Ventoy) I still have the drivers at the root of this Ventoy drive. I booted from this Ventoy drive and don't remember if I clicked, moved, or copied anything. I remember it booted into Windows like nothing had happened and has been fine ever since.Drivers made your disk appear in BIOS/UEFI? Magic indeed
sapphirescales
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Sweet Jesus, all of this just for a $30 SSD and 10 minutes of your time? After the thing taking more than 2 minutes to boot I would have immediately shut it off and pulled out the SSD, plugged it into my dock, and imaged it, and while it was imaging I would have grabbed a new SSD, restored a fresh Windows 11 image to it, popped it in, and figured out if it booted normally. All in all 10 minutes of time spent to figure out if we have a drive problem or something else weird going on. You're overthinking it. Time is money. You won't catch me wasting hours of my time fiddling with a questionable SSD and Windows install. It's just not worth it. And if it is a failing SSD, letting it sit trying to boot for hours and hours risks further degradation of the drive. When something like this comes into my shop, I image it immediately. I miss the service doors too but it's really not that big of a deal to take off a couple of screws and remove the bottom/palm rest of the laptop to access the drive. It takes like 5 minutes. What I hate is when they put the motherboard in upside down so you have to take out the entire motherboard in order to access the SSD, heat sink, fans, RAM, etc. Thankfully most laptops don't do that. I got one of those in the other day and I was swearing the whole time. I hate MSI gaming laptops.
britechguy
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In your opinion, but not in mine. I find it invaluable to add to my "recognition of precise issue based on symptoms" mental collection, and on first exposure to unusual conditions, that requires time and care.
It's my time (and, thus, my money). I get to choose both as I see fit.
It's also clear that this situation has proven intriguing to others for a variety of reasons. It wasn't a garden variety presentation.
Anyway, we're just waiting for a new SSD to arrive, then I'll install it.
sapphirescales
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The SSD doesn't show up under the Windows installer itself. The drive that shows up is your USB flash drive. It's stupid, but the new Windows 11 installer shows the flash drive as a fixed disk. It's very possible that the drive is dead and just isn't showing up, but it's equally possible that the Windows 11 installer doesn't have the correct Intel RST driver and that's why it's not showing up. Enter the serial number into HP's website, download the Intel RST driver, extract it, put it on a second flash drive, then hit "add driver" (or whatever it says in the new Windows 11 installer), select the driver, then see if the internal SSD shows up. Windows 11 oftentimes doesn't have the storage driver for those crappy low end HP laptops built into the installer itself. I've had two of these in just in the last week. Very frustrating. If the new drive doesn't show up in the installer either, it's because the driver doesn't exist in the Windows 11 installer.
lan101
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This was similar to what happened to me a few weeks ago on a brand new dell desktop. They put some off brandish nvme ssd in there. I set it all up and it was fine for a few days but then it just started behaving funny. Certain things wouldn't open up for the client etc.
The windows installer showed up with the nvme with a really bizarre GB amount. I figured that was the issue was the nvme itself. I just installed a samsung sata ssd instead and autofabs the data back over and it's been fine. The client won't notice a speed difference for what they do and I told them I trusted the samsung sata's more than the nvme versions for now.
Maybe you did flash the firmware of the SSD, which corrected the issue...
britechguy
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First, I long ago acknowledged that what is shown is the install media. I need not again.
Second, I have never, ever, in all the Windows installs I have done, not had the drive onto which it is to be installed not be recognized in the Windows installer. Ever. Part of the install is picking the drive on to which Windows will be installed. I've never had any SATA or NVMe drive, correctly seated, not just show up.
I'm sticking with the drive being dead. We'll know for sure when the client next contacts me once the new drive comes in. He's a genuinely struggling college student, so whether that's tomorrow, next week, or after he has enough money from his summer day job remains to be seen.
britechguy
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BTW, I have had weird issues with uninitialized drives of all sorts in the past, so I do often initialize brand spankin' new SSDs prior to ever popping them in to the machine that will be their permanent home.
sapphirescales
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I don't know what to tell you. I see it at least once a week and not just on HPs. I've got an HP on my bench right now that won't recognize the SSD under the Windows 11 installer. I had to use the methods I outlined in my last post in order to get the SSD to show up.
britechguy
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Honestly, you don't need to tell me anything. You're reporting your experiences, and I'm reporting mine.
I will certainly keep what you've said in mind. But based on my own experiences I'm not "going to go there, first."
It seems that it's not all that infrequent that certain things happen far more frequently for some of us here than for others, and who can explain why that is. I'm not attempting to deny what others are saying, as they (you, in this case) have no reason to lie.
frase
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britechguy
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Yes, what would you call knowingly making a false statement? And since my statement was very clear that no one here has any reason to misrepresent/lie/spread falsehood/prevaricate/whatever word you want to use, what's the problem?
Is it an insult to say that I presume we're all telling the truth? That's what "have no reason to lie" means. It's not at all ambiguous.
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