Complicated NVMe SSD/possible motherboard issue

...this setup was working fine for over 2 months before one day, it simply decided not to. Is this something that can just happen all of the sudden? A driver just deciding not to work after working for some time? Pardon my ignorance, as all my computer knowledge is just self-taught from google and the like.

But talking with the MB manufacturer does seem like the best idea. After my Nvme reader arrives, it will let me see for sure if the drive itself is at least working, so I can rule that possibility out entirely. And if they don't know how to fix it, or it's not a driver problem of some kind, then I can at least start the inevitable battle to get them to send me a replacement, since a MB shouldn't break after 2 months.

Thank you for the reply! This issue has me at my wits end.

But what I noted is just one of dozens of reasons.

I think the story is worth repeating in a different way. Here goes. Johnny Windows User has their PC all working nicely. Microsoft pushes a driver update via Windows 10 and blammo, Johnny is having a bad day.

Microsoft is far from perfect and this change about driver updates for Windows 10 while it works 99.99% of the time seems to blow up on a few PCs. The more off mainstream the PC is, the higher the chance this will affect the PC.

Your PC is such a PC.

Also I don't get the feeling you've installed Windows enough (here I think I'm up to some 10+ thousand installs over the years) to know how badly Microsoft misses the mark on their driver selection and how this issue worked its way into updating working drivers for (Microsoft's choice) of a failing driver (code 10.)

-> Again this is why a chat with the motherboard maker is in order.

As to the NVME READER I would not consider that a definitive "this drive is good" tester. The definitive test is a new drive to install along with the drivers, BIOS, BIOS settings that the motherboard maker calls out. THAT and disabling Windows 10 Driver Update feature during the setup.

Just one question though: what do you mean that the NVME reader is not a definitive test? If I can read the SSD from an NVME reader, it means the drive itself hasn't failed, right? As in, it's not a hardware problem with the SSD itself?

One bit of information I can give about the NVME controller driver: it is the microsoft driver version 10.0.18362.1, which is apparently the latest version of that driver, and it's older than my PC build by at least a few months. I was unable to roll back the driver, because there was never a previous version of it on my machine. It is incorrectly dated 6/21/2006 (I have no idea why, but many driver dates are just wrong in Windows), but I've googled it and seen this exact version mentioned in pages from 6 months ago at least. I'm also not a programmer in any way, so I'm also sure that some completely unrelated driver could have been updated and somehow broke this one which was previously working.

I'm also easily able to wipe the C: drive and reinstall windows again if I need to. Any suggestions as to what settings I could use when trying again? You mentioned disabling the driver update feature during the setup; is that something that is prompted during the setup, or do I have to manually force it to do that in some menu?

1. After seeing drives work or not on motherboard ports and reverse on USB adapters my experience is why I call it not definitive. The definitive test is a blank new drive and all the USUAL work to get it working.

2. Sorry but no. As I have yet to see a build like yours and even if I did I would have to have it in the armada between office and home. Since I do not have such a build this is why the setup, settings, drivers and all attendant information has to come from the motherboard maker.

3. I keep mentioning about DISABLING WINDOWS 10 AUTOMATIC DRIVER UPDATES. Let's see if Google helps:
https://www.google.com/search?client=you&q=DISABLING+WINDOWS+10+AUTOMATIC+DRIVER+UPDATES

But the one thing you must never do is write to that drive. That has to be the number one mistake new techs do when learning about data recovery.

For do it yourself work like this you have another drive to hold what you want to extract then run RECUVA in its deep scan mode. There are pages about this so I don't write more about it except the area about recovery.

In case you missed it, you NEVER write to drives you want to recover data or files from. Never.

Deep Scan was able to find basically everything as far as I could tell (94,000 files and such, so I'm not sure exactly if anything was missing). Recuva is currently running, and it is copying all data to another external HD for backup. At that point, I should be able to reformat the drive, then stick it back in the motherboard and hope and pray everything works again. If it does, then holy moly, this issue that has plagued me for the last two weeks will finally be over.

Thanks for your replies and advice. I sincerely appreciate it, since the two other forums I posted this issue on didn't get a single reply despite hundreds of views.

"We make our own luck."

What I'm alluding to is that you took to heart about never writing to the failed drive. I've handed that nugget for decades and you can bet folk try to fix the drive anyway resulting is more damage that RECUVA can't sift through.

As to the other forums, your machine is a bit out of the ordinary which may be scary.