Slightly worried about my boot drive..

[thomor]

So after leaving a glowing review about my new PCS computer and thinking it was all going to be sunshine and rainbows going forward, I fell asleep watching a Twitch stream today, and when I woke up for some reason my PC was in the BIOS menu.

Weird I thought.. but no problem, let's just exit back into Windows... oh wait, my M.2 boot drive apparently doesn't exist anymore according to the boot options? Exited and restarted the PC a few times and each time the red boot led on the motherboard would stay on and it would try booting from some other media (IP4, IP6) I didn't recognise, but never picked up my SSD.

Then on then 4th try instead of going back into the BIOS when it failed to boot it went onto a black screen that said "Reboot and select proper boot device". So I rebooted, forced it back into BIOS.. and there is my M.2 drive last on the boot priority but definitely being recognised again. So I shifted it back up to priority #1, restarted (still tried to boot through IP4 and 6 first, then booted correctly through the M.2 even though it was first in prio), and then it went into Windows properly.

Upon getting back into Windows, there was an update configuring for a few seconds, and now I'm back in fully. It's kinda weird and it's worried me. Can the Windows update somehow cause all this? And why did it suddenly stop and start being detected on it's own without me changing anything?

 

[SpyderTracks]

IPV4 and IPV6 boots are PXE network boots where they try to boot from a source over the network.

If possible I'd disable those as you'll never use them.

Definitely put the Boot drive as the first in the list in BIOS rather than the boot menu (boot menu is just a selection rather than adjusting the boot order).

By any chance, was the PC plugged into a LAN source for the first time or running off wireless? If there was usually no network, it would bypass the PXE boots and go to the next source.

 

[thomor]

IPV4 and IPV6 boots are PXE network boots where they try to boot from a source over the network.

If possible I'd disable those as you'll never use them.

Definitely put the Boot drive as the first in the list in BIOS rather than the boot menu (boot menu is just a selection rather than adjusting the boot order).

By any chance, was the PC plugged into a LAN source for the first time or running off wireless? If there was usually no network, it would bypass the PXE boots and go to the next source.

The PC has always been connected to my router via ethernet cable since I first installed Windows 2 weeks ago. I'm just curious how this randomly happened and the only reason I can think of is the Windows update it was halfway through configuring... but why? I'm scared to restart and go back into the BIOS just in case it stops detecting the boot drive again lol.

 

[SpyderTracks]

The PC has always been connected to my router via ethernet cable since I first installed Windows 2 weeks ago. I'm just curious how this randomly happened and the only reason I can think of is the Windows update it was halfway through configuring... but why? I'm scared to restart and go back into the BIOS just in case it stops detecting the boot drive again lol.

I don't think it had lost the boot drive, just think it wasn't exiting the PXE boot and continuing through the list, which can happen.

 

[ubuysa]

Upon getting back into Windows, there was an update configuring for a few seconds, and now I'm back in fully. It's kinda weird and it's worried me. Can the Windows update somehow cause all this? And why did it suddenly stop and start being detected on it's own without me changing anything?

It is possible that a Windows Update was the root cause. There have been two updates recently (KBB4525470 and 1909) and both require a restart, 1909 actually does two restarts. A glitch with either could have caused things to stall. Have a look at update history and see what has been installed and whether any failed.