After increasing the RAM speed, the SSD fails to boot and appears blank.
After increasing the RAM speed, the SSD fails to boot and appears blank.
Hi,
I recently bought the GSKill Trident Z RGB 3200MHz (https://www.gskill.com/product/165/...BD...GB-(2x8GB)) and set my Gigabyte AB350m Gaming 3 motherboard to 1886MHz, then overclocked it using Gigabyte Easy Tune and restarted the PC. Everything functioned normally with no issues or crashes. The next day, when I powered on my system, it showed the message "Reboot and select proper boot device."
I checked the BIOS settings to ensure my SSD—where Windows 10 is installed—was listed as the top boot device, but it wasn’t working. I reset the BIOS back to default values, including overclock settings, but still couldn’t boot. Clearing the CMOS with a jumper and resetting the BIOS didn’t help either.
I then tried booting from a USB drive to attempt a repair of my Windows installation, but it failed consistently. All system repair and restore attempts returned errors such as "won't work" or "system restore not found." Eventually, I decided to perform a fresh installation, suspecting that corrupted OS files might have occurred during the overclock process.
During the installation, I noticed "Windows Setup" listing both my hard drives (SSD and HDD) as empty, with no storage available. This raised concerns about data loss or display issues. I didn’t understand why it was showing empty space, whether this was a real problem or just an error.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I’m confident the other drive also appears empty, which is concerning.
Thanks in advance.
BIOS Version: F31
CPU: Ryzen 5 1600
Perhaps by "repairing" you created both drives? Start booting from a Linux USB flash drive, such as Mint or Ubuntu, and check out your storage options.
no, i'm having trouble starting the system and just want to verify if windows can detect it. even though the bios lists both drives, i'm checking with the windows usb drive. i went through all the steps until the list of available drives appeared, and it was surprising to see both shows full capacity as free space. before that, i only adjusted bios settings and motherboard connections. definitely not formatted. i plan to try a linux bootable drive and locate the laptop. also, if everything works in that os, is there a way to fix windows without a fresh installation?
It occurred to me when I pushed my RAM too high. This caused the OS files to become corrupted. Suggest trying Linux as advised and testing the drives on another PC to check for emptiness. If the files are crucial, consider using expensive file recovery services.
During overclocking, I use a removable storage such as a USB stick for all test programs. For RAM overclocking, I start by booting into memtest86.
When I increase my RAM speed, I anticipate the possibility that (in the worst case) my hard drive might lose some essential OS files, which could be resolved using this bootable OS drive. The current concern is understanding how both the SSD and HDD were impacted together. Today, I plan to use Ubuntu to verify whether those drives are indeed empty or if partitions have been affected.
Just to let you know, G.Skill does not show that RAM kit as compatible with your MB:
RAM Configurator-G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd.
G.SKILL
www.gskill.com,
I own the same kit in my Ryzen 5 2600, Asus ROG strix B450-F Rig, and it functions perfectly. It also works with an OC of 3400, but it appears on both G.Skill and Asus compatibility lists for my system.
GSkill doesn't display the RAM information on their site. I previously used 8GB with a 2666MHz processor without any problems for almost a year. Later, I bought another 8GB and verified if it could reach 3200MHz. When I changed the speed, there were no issues, but this happened again when I turned on the PC.
Today, while using Ubuntu Live, I noticed the same drives weren't recognized. Using GParted showed both as unrecognized disks. Further research indicated the problem was due to "it doesn't contain partition table/partition type not recognized." I attempted fixes like boot repair and diskpart, but they didn't work. Eventually, I decided to install a new SSD, which now boots correctly but all data is lost.
After restarting Windows, I checked if it detected the backup drive or another hard disk, but the issue persisted—no drive letter was assigned to that disk. I don't want to format it and need recommendations for tools or software that can restore missing headers without losing data. Thank you for your help.
The initial mixing of RAM is quite challenging, even when using the same brand and part number. It's essential to purchase RAM from certified kits. If you need to recover your files without paying for recovery services, try Recuva. https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva You should also have another empty hard drive with at least double the capacity of the one you're trying to recover from. This additional space is necessary to locate and store files that were deleted long ago.