More Woes.

[Nigel H-J]

After having re-installed Win 11 and also other software I have now encountered more problems, before these problems occurred I had downloaded and installed Avast One disc cleanup as it had good reviews and used it once before downloading Glary Utilities which I had previously. After uninstalling Avast, and shutting down my problems came to light next day, now I am not saying that Avast has anything to do with it but computer had been running really well but on the next startup it went through the post start checks then shut down, re-started and went into BIOS with the wording

Please enter setup to recover BIOS settings.
After setting up Intel (R) Optane memory or the RAID configuration was built
SATA Mode Selection must be changed to RAID mode to avoid unknown issues.
Press F1 to Run SETUP.

I had to press one in order to get out of it and then it booted into windows but does this every-time I switch on the computer and driving me nuts as cannot fathom out what the cause is. Further more to add to my frustrations I have found that I have lost 2 disc drives, one SSD which was to have MS2020 re-installed and my HDD I still have 2 remaining , Windows C then F: which is my X-plane disc but cannot for the life of me remember what the other 2 were nor do I know why they have done a runner!!

This is beginning to be too much for my brain to fathom out, as for the BIOS Screen and all the selections I am totally lost and likely to cause more problems trying to feel my way out of this mess.

Regards
Nigel.

[Vc Ten]

Looks like one of the utilities, Avast or Glary (never heard of it) has decided your 4 drives would be better utilised, set up in a raid configuration that's why your physical drives now only appear as 2. Have you actually changed the Sata mode setting in the Bios to enable raid? If not that's why it keeps booting to setup so the change matches what's required in windows. I've no experience with setting a raid configuration or returning a system to non raid. I can see a potential for data loss either way.
Hope Ben replies
Dale

[TSR2]

Hi Nigel,

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare. As a rule of thumb I never enable Optane or RAID nowadays as it tries to be too clever for its own good and isn’t necessary with SSD or NVMe drives. Now all that said, it depends on what it was set to in the beginning. Now I cant remember your system exactly, but most modern intel boards support Optane, but most don’t use it (unless there was an old spinning hdd in there) so Optane can be disabled.
RAID could be more problematic depend on how it was originally set up. I don’t think you had any RAID, in which case the SATA mode should be set to ACHI and NOT raid.

The exact wording in the BIOS varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. If for some reason there was some sort of RAID config, it gets a little more tricky.

See if you can find the SATA mode setting in the BIOS and make sure RAID is not selected (either set to ACHI or possibly Disabled - depending on the board).

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Ben and Dale, firstly very many thanks for replying. I do believe as you wrote Dale that Avast may very well have contributed in some way to my dilemma.

Ben, unfortunately I no longer have any time left but will be back here during the afternoon tomorrow and will go through the suggestions you have made. I have also gone onto You Tube to try and find out why 2 drives are no longer listed and have just found that one drive is now showing

Please click on image, on the far left Drive H is now showing as a USB Drive and when clicked it says please insert disc into USB Drive. Now it needs to be told that it is not a USB but a disc?


Be on tomorrow Ben

Regards
Nigel.

[Nigel H-J]

Started up this afternoon and noticed that I am back to just 2 drives, Windows and then the SSD containing X-Plane 11.

Unable to get the other 2 working, one is HDD and the other SSD.

Have re-set Bios to default but it still starts stops then into Bios. Think something is on the way out I guess and will have to use the services of a computer geek to sort this mess out.

Also have noticed that I am unable to get into Steam for 2 days so unable to access to download games.

Regards
Nigel.

[Vc Ten]

If you go into the bios and all your drives show up there, then I doubt its hardware related Nigel.
I would give it a go at reformatting c drive and reinstall windows again. Nothing to lose
Dale

[TSR2]

Agree with Dale, but before you reinstall make sure to disable RAID first. Find the SATA Mode setting (or whatever it is called on your PC) and ensure its set to AHCI and not RAID.

Reseting to default can often enable RAID as this is often how machines are shipped before additional drives are added by the end user.

[Nigel H-J]

Dale and Ben, very many thanks, I do have a USB from when I first got this computer from Scan and it has the original Win 10 for installing, after which I can then progress to updating to Win 11.

Need to look up a few things before formatting C:/ so will be back sometime!!

Regards
Nigel.

[TSR2]

Hi Nigel,

You don’t need to install Windows 10 first, thats a world of pain that can be avoided.

Go here….

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... windows11/

Click on the link to create installation media. It will download the Windows 11 installer tool.
Run the tool (you will also need a empty USB memory stick of at least 8GB)
It will create Windows 11 installer for you.

You can then boot from the USB memory stick and commence the install straight to Windows 11.

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Ben, many thanks for the link but something really really strange had happened on my computer. I had made sure all in Bios were as instructed then went to the Scan USB. Restarted computer whilst holding down Shift Key then went into Setup Menu and chose the USB so that everything on the computer would be Formatted After the installation, I found that Disc C: was one of my 1TB discs and the original 500GB M.2 had abandoned my PC so only one drive now left. More problems raised their heads and no amount of coaxing the internet kept well away from my efforts to connect.

So decided to re-install again! After the install it had once again installed into the same disc as before, now either the install programme would go where I wanted it or we would cease to be friends!! So once again I pressed Shift Key and restarted but this time went into Windows menu so I just signed into Windows and my Bitdefender came up with a warning (s) of Malware and Malicious Behavior.

This I could not understand as I had set this drive to be formatted and re-installed with Win10 but now after all these attempts suddenly I now just have one drive showing which is this one the M.2 with everything as it was before!

Now after this faffing about I am going to speak to the computer genius I use and get him to sort this mess out once and for all. Now the disc that held X-Plane 11 has gone so have three discs missing in total.

I do wonder whether it was the AVAST One disc cleaner that did this as that was the only program I installed recently or maybe it was just a co-incidental!!!

Won't be until the New Year that I can get to see him but at least I now have Win 11 back and can sit here typing a big big moan to you all!!

Regards
Nigel.