Windows boot not always being found?

Psykoma

Hello everyone,

I figured I would try here because I just can't find the solution and it's beyond my abilities to figure out.

If I turn on my desktop, I get an error that the boot drive isn't found, please restart and go into bios or insert a usb boot drive.
I can restart it and go into bios, sometimes it shows my drives and sometimes it doesn't (I have a 1tb m.2 with the boot on it, as well as a 4tb hard drive). But even without changing anything, if I exit the bios and restart the pc, it magically finds the boot drive and loads up windows no problem.

I eventually figured out that if I turn on the pc, get to the error "Can't find the boot drive" screen, and then just leave my pc turned on for 20-30 seconds before restarting it, it somehow manages to find the boot drive and loads into windows no problem.

Now that I know I just have to wait a bit before restarting it, it's not as annoying, but it is still quite annoying. If anyone has a suggestion please let me know, I would appreciate it

The system:
Intel I7-9700k
msi RTX 3070ti
Asus Z390-E mobo
4x8 gb corsair ram
Seasonic 80+ gold 750 psu
Windows 10 home

The only thing that's been changed from default in the BIOS was enabling XMPI, but I had this problem before doing that as well

Thanks

Synthesis

I ran into this situation very similarly on my previous PC setup (with what i believe was an ASUS Z97-A motherboard dating back to the last decade). It would probably happen on a monthly basis; the first time it scared the hell out of me, to be sure, but eventually I learned to live with it.

If your case is like mine, it had nothing to do with your settings. I forget what the culprit ended up being, but I suspect the issue went away after I replaced my boot SSD (originally a Micron, I think) with another one (Samsung). I tried to search for my thread, but only found a similar issue with a spontaneously disconnecting boot drive.

If it is related, then you might be looking at a defective SSD (in the end of the day, this happens; solid storage is much more reliable than it used to be, but it can still fail), which unfortunately the only good solution is to replace it. As this is an m.2 slot, you can rule out cables and it's probably not a defective socket (hopefully; you could potentially test the other socket if your motherboard has one and it's enabled).

Bendery It Like Beckham

Psykoma wrote: »

Hello everyone,

I figured I would try here because I just can't find the solution and it's beyond my abilities to figure out.

If I turn on my desktop, I get an error that the boot drive isn't found, please restart and go into bios or insert a usb boot drive.
I can restart it and go into bios, sometimes it shows my drives and sometimes it doesn't (I have a 1tb m.2 with the boot on it, as well as a 4tb hard drive). But even without changing anything, if I exit the bios and restart the pc, it magically finds the boot drive and loads up windows no problem.

I eventually figured out that if I turn on the pc, get to the error "Can't find the boot drive" screen, and then just leave my pc turned on for 20-30 seconds before restarting it, it somehow manages to find the boot drive and loads into windows no problem.

Now that I know I just have to wait a bit before restarting it, it's not as annoying, but it is still quite annoying. If anyone has a suggestion please let me know, I would appreciate it

The system:
Intel I7-9700k
msi RTX 3070ti
Asus Z390-E mobo
4x8 gb corsair ram
Seasonic 80+ gold 750 psu
Windows 10 home

The only thing that's been changed from default in the BIOS was enabling XMPI, but I had this problem before doing that as well

Thanks

Oh hey,

open cmd in admin and give me the output of

bcdedit /enum

this normally happens when the device is trying to boot off a corrupt hibernation file or there is junk data in your BCD.

If the BCD looks correct I'd try clearing your hiberfile; once again in cmd with admin

powercfg /h

- reboot (to be thorough use

shutdown -r -t 0

. if you want your hibernation back just run the command again after you reboot. If these things don't work the above post about a failing drive is most likely the culprit.

Psykoma

So when I made this post, I had been having this trouble every single time I turned on my computer for over two weeks.

The day after I made this post, it booted normally and I haven't had the problem since, because karma/life just loves making me feel embarrassed.

Bendery It Like Beckham wrote: »

Psykoma wrote: »

Hello everyone,

I figured I would try here because I just can't find the solution and it's beyond my abilities to figure out.

If I turn on my desktop, I get an error that the boot drive isn't found, please restart and go into bios or insert a usb boot drive.
I can restart it and go into bios, sometimes it shows my drives and sometimes it doesn't (I have a 1tb m.2 with the boot on it, as well as a 4tb hard drive). But even without changing anything, if I exit the bios and restart the pc, it magically finds the boot drive and loads up windows no problem.

I eventually figured out that if I turn on the pc, get to the error "Can't find the boot drive" screen, and then just leave my pc turned on for 20-30 seconds before restarting it, it somehow manages to find the boot drive and loads into windows no problem.

Now that I know I just have to wait a bit before restarting it, it's not as annoying, but it is still quite annoying. If anyone has a suggestion please let me know, I would appreciate it

The system:
Intel I7-9700k
msi RTX 3070ti
Asus Z390-E mobo
4x8 gb corsair ram
Seasonic 80+ gold 750 psu
Windows 10 home

The only thing that's been changed from default in the BIOS was enabling XMPI, but I had this problem before doing that as well

Thanks

Oh hey,

open cmd in admin and give me the output of

bcdedit /enum

this normally happens when the device is trying to boot off a corrupt hibernation file or there is junk data in your BCD.

If the BCD looks correct I'd try clearing your hiberfile; once again in cmd with admin

powercfg /h

- reboot (to be thorough use

shutdown -r -t 0

. if you want your hibernation back just run the command again after you reboot. If these things don't work the above post about a failing drive is most likely the culprit.

This was the output:

I think I'll save the further steps for when/if the issue comes back.



Thank you both for your help though

Bendery It Like Beckham

That looks good so nothing funky going on boot file wise!