My wife's desktop PC failed to boot; after a couple of times it came
back to life. I backed it up, then a couple of days later it failed
again.

Odd, the fans spin and change speed, like it's going through POST- but
no video.

What I learned is that NVMe drives, since they're directly attached to
the PCI bus, can prevent boot when they fail - as opposed to a SATA
drive, which just doesn't appear. With SATA, the system will POST, then
fail to boot with a "boot device not found" message.

I would have thought it was the power supply or a bad motherboard at
first glance. Glad I took the drive out to reseat it and saw it boot to
setup without the drive in it.

I was going to replace it with a SATA drive, but I don't see a place to
mount it. She doesn't need NVMe speed and those tiny 2230 SSDs are
expensive.





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Re: NVMe drive failure
By: poindexter FORTRAN to All on Sat Oct 03 2026 08:52:05

I would have thought it was the power supply...

If that were the case, you wouldn't have heard the fans spin up, or anything else for that matter. PSUs tend to go out with a bang (literally) instead of a wimper.

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On Sat, 3 Oct 2026 08:52:05 -0700
"poindexter FORTRAN" (VERT/REALITY) <VERT/REALITY!poindexter.FORTRAN@endofthelinebbs.com> wrote:

My wife's desktop PC failed to boot; after a couple of times it came
back to life. I backed it up, then a couple of days later it failed
again.

Odd, the fans spin and change speed, like it's going through POST- but
no video.

What I learned is that NVMe drives, since they're directly attached to
the PCI bus, can prevent boot when they fail - as opposed to a SATA
drive, which just doesn't appear. With SATA, the system will POST,
then fail to boot with a "boot device not found" message.

I would have thought it was the power supply or a bad motherboard at
first glance. Glad I took the drive out to reseat it and saw it boot
to setup without the drive in it.

I was going to replace it with a SATA drive, but I don't see a place
to mount it. She doesn't need NVMe speed and those tiny 2230 SSDs are expensive.

Per gb they're expensive but you can get a 256gb from Amazon for $60.
Does it have to be 2230?

Also, you don't have to be able to mount of SSD drive, assuming that's
what you mean by SATA these days? Unless a spinning disk, it doesn't
need to be bolted down and it really doesn't care on its orientation.
As long as you're not moving your system around it should be fine lying
on the bottom of the case.
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Re: NVMe drive failure
By: Mortar to poindexter FORTRAN on Sat Oct 03 2026 12:36 pm

Re: NVMe drive failure
By: poindexter FORTRAN to All on Sat Oct 03 2026 08:52:05

I would have thought it was the power supply...

If that were the case, you wouldn't have heard the fans spin up, or anything else for that matter. PSUs tend to go out with a bang (literally) instead of > a wimper.

Well in my experience they go out with an ozone smell.
I'm not so sure about his nvme theory.

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nelgin wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Per gb they're expensive but you can get a 256gb from Amazon for $60.
Does it have to be 2230?

Yes. Unfortunately, it's not one of those systems that have fittings
for multiple form factors of M.2.

Also, you don't have to be able to mount of SSD drive, assuming that's what you mean by SATA these days? Unless a spinning disk, it doesn't
need to be bolted down and it really doesn't care on its orientation.
As long as you're not moving your system around it should be fine lying
on the bottom of the case.

Oh, I've been there - used double-sided mounting squares or zip ties to
hold a drive in...

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Mortar wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Re: NVMe drive failure
By: poindexter FORTRAN to All on Sat Oct 03 2026 08:52:05

I would have thought it was the power supply...

If that were the case, you wouldn't have heard the fans spin up, or anything else for that matter. PSUs tend to go out with a bang (literally) instead of a wimper.

Yep, turned out to be the drive. I received a replacement drive in the
mail, installed it, installed Windows 11 and restored from backup. All
of the data was on a spinning d: drive, so that was all good.

My learning for the day - dells don't boot off of USB drives plugged
into the front USB ports, only the back.


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Re: Re: NVMe drive failure
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Mortar on Mon Oct 05 2026 08:07 am

My learning for the day - dells don't boot off of USB drives plugged
into the front USB ports, only the back.

Yeah that's wrong. I have 3 dells. They will boot off a usb on the front.

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Re: Re: NVMe drive failure
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Mortar on Mon Oct 05 2026 08:07 am

My learning for the day - dells don't boot off of USB drives plugged
into the front USB ports, only the back.

That is a setting (bootable front/rear ports) in the BIOS of any Dell I've ever seen. Easily corrected.

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Re: Re: NVMe drive failure
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Mortar on Mon Oct 05 2026 08:07 am

My learning for the day - dells don't boot off of USB drives plugged into the front USB ports, only the back.

My BBS PC is a Dell and it boots from front USB ports. I installed Linux on it that way.

Nightfox

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Nightfox wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Re: Re: NVMe drive failure
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Mortar on Mon Oct 05 2026 08:07 am

My learning for the day - dells don't boot off of USB drives plugged into the front USB ports, only the back.

My BBS PC is a Dell and it boots from front USB ports. I installed
Linux on it that way.

I guess he hasn't bothered to look at the BIOS. It's a simple setting
in there for that function.



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Gamgee wrote to Nightfox <=-

I guess he hasn't bothered to look at the BIOS. It's a simple setting
in there for that function.

You'd have guessed incorrectly, then. I did look at it, but had my hands
full. I'd go back and confirm, but I don't care that much any more since
the system is back up and running and my wife has access to all of her
photos and documents.



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Re: Re: NVMe drive failure
By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Thu Oct 08 2026 10:03 pm

My BBS PC is a Dell and it boots from front USB ports. I installed Linux
on it that way.

I guess he hasn't bothered to look at the BIOS. It's a simple setting in there for that function.

I didn't realize there was a BIOS setting for that. For me it must have been already enabled (I bought it used on eBay).

Nightfox

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