Hey everyone

 Up to this point I’ve had 2 SSD.S (PNY 480GB). As well as a WD 1TB HD. I had one if my SSD,s for the OS. Another for P3Dv5 and the 1TB HD for XPlane and as a storage driver. 
 

I purchased an M2 SSD (for MSFS 512GB Intel). As soon as installed it and turned my PC on I started getting a BOOT error. The error would not go away so I was forced to re install windows. But then after doing all of that I noticed my bios was not detecting one of my SSD,s. So I went to the partition manager. Unplugged the SATA for the one that is missing and then it appeared. I formatted The SSD then changed it’s letter. Now the original SSD that was being detected is not. 
 

So I’m scratching my head. Because o can’t seem to understand went wrong as they both worked harmoniously together. Now they’re missing. 
 

What steps can you guys recommend. Because now I’m basically missing 480 GB worth of storage and a whole day reinstalling several programs. 
 

Thanks

You might want to give some more details on your hardware, especially the mobo. Some mobos use a SATA slot number for the M2 drive so in essence you lose one (or more) SATA port. See for example:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/sata-ssd-disappears-when-m-2-installed.2779175/

9 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

You might want to give some more details on your hardware, especially the mobo. Some mobos use a SATA slot number for the M2 drive so in essence you lose one (or more) SATA port. See for example:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/sata-ssd-disappears-when-m-2-installed.2779175/

That’s a great point. 
my MOBO is a MSI Z170X. INTEL 6700K 4.6GHZ. GSKULL 64GB RAM 2667 MHZ. GTX1080TI. H100i V2 CPU COOLER, 

 

So in this case would it mean that I the whole 4 SATA connectors behind the M2 would then be unusable? Or do I try plugging in the SATA connector for the missing SSD on another port? 

26 minutes ago, Alcides Segovia said:

my MOBO is a MSI Z170X. INTEL 6700K 4.6GHZ. GSKULL 64GB RAM 2667 MHZ. GTX1080TI. H100i V2 CPU COOLER, 

My handbook for the MSI Z170A gaming Mboard, which is very similar, shows that if an M2 is plugged into the number 2 M2 slot, (the slot nearest the bottom of the board), and is running as pcie, which would be normal. then you lose SATA ports 5 and 6.

If a single M2 is in number 1 M2 slot, nearest the processor, with the other M2 slot empty, then it should not affect the other SATA slots.

SATA slots 1 to 4 will always be available, but their positions on the board may vary slightly between different versions of this motherboard.

It's best to check your mainboard handbook. where it is well explained with diagrams which are clearer than a  written explanation,  If you do not have one you can usually download it from the MSI website.

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by Biggles2010

Agree.  You have to d/l the manual if you don't have it and check the diagram on which SATA ports on the back are available depending on type of SSD and M2 slot.

 

scott s.

.

 

 

Try changing your SSD to another SATA port. I know certain older MBs would disable SATA port 5/6 if M.2 is detected.

So here is the connector SATA drive when I am using a M2 and PCIe. I am not sure what its trying to tell me here. Would the top row be the one I am looking at?

 

 

 

 

If you have an X4 M.2 then you loose SATA 0 through 3. Probably because to get the PCIE lanes it needs to shut off that SATA controller.

 

Have to move the cables to SATA3_4 and SATA 3_5

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by Slayer

Thanks everyone for the help. After finding the correct ports all of my drives are now fully installed. This now that I think back did not need me to reinstall every single drive. I guess a new lesson for the future.