The motherboard detects the SSD yet blocks starting the Windows 11 partition inside it.
The motherboard detects the SSD yet blocks starting the Windows 11 partition inside it.
I need to describe my PC situation clearly. A few days back, I took out a SATA SSD that held a Windows 10 setup with my previous files. Now I’m using a new M.2 NVMe SSD and run Windows 11 every day. At first, the old SATA drive was inactive, but it kept asking if I wanted to boot into Windows 11 or 10. I think this was because the old drive was still present. I didn’t try booting it before. Recently, I decided to sell the SATA SSD, formatted it, and removed it. All this happened while I was using Windows 11. After turning off my PC and taking out the SATA drive, I restarted it and it still boots into BIOS. Even after swapping in the NVMe SSD, the system always goes back to BIOS. In the BIOS it shows the NVMe is detected in the M.2 slot. When I try to reinstall Windows, the installer says my machine doesn’t meet the requirements for Windows 11. I’m really upset because I have valuable data on the NVMe drive and can’t access it now. I hope someone understands what’s happening and can assist me. Thank you. Full parts list: CPU – Ryzen 5 3600x, Motherboard – MSI B550 Gaming Plus, RAM – XPG D60G RGB DDR4 4 x 8 GB 3200Mhz, GPU – iChill X3 RTX 3060ti LHR, PSU – Corsair Rm750, SSD – WD Blue SN570 1TB NVMe.
So you're trying to set up Windows 11 on an NVMe drive and wondering if you had to remove the old SATA unit during setup? It's common to leave the SATA drive in place when installing Windows, especially since previous versions like Windows 10 and 11 both handled EFI partitions. You can recover the EFI partition later by creating it manually and installing the corresponding boot loader.
Here’s a quick guide based on the instructions from the link you shared:
1. Start your PC using a Windows installation disc or recovery tool.
2. Press “Shift + F10” to open the Command Prompt.
3. Run the following commands to find and shrink the EFI partition:
- `diskpart`
- `list disk`
- `select disk x` (replace with your disk number)
- `list partition`
- `select partition n` (n is the size you want)
- `shrink desired=500`
4. After shrinking, create an EFI system partition using:
- `create partition efi size=200`
- `format quick fs=fat32 label="system"`
5. Finally, install the bootloader and other essential software with commands like:
- `bootrec/fixboot`
- `bcdboot c:\Windows /s b: /f all`
6. Restart your computer to verify that the EFI partition is working properly.
To prevent any issues, follow these steps. Obtain another disk and avoid taking risks since you need to recover important data. You should already have another drive available for the recovery process. Install it temporarily and perform a fresh Windows installation on that drive. Ensure everything functions correctly and successfully retrieve your data. Once completed, format the drive and clone all files to the SSD. At this stage, you’ll have a perfect backup, allowing you to decide your next steps confidently.