HDD not detected after upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11

[Valmor2]

After upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11, laptop doesn't detect the C drive anymore.

DISM won't work, chkdsk won't work, none of the recovery options work as it can't detect the drive.

From Hardware Diagnostics UEFI, HD/SSD seems to be okay.

How can I recover this laptop without losing personal files/data stored in it?

 

[tk_srq]

@Valmor2,

Your screenshots indicate that your laptop has an Intel 512 GB NVMe with an embedded 32 GB Optane memory.

Are you getting a boot error at startup, such as a "boot device not found (3F0)" error? If so, please refer to the document below for how to troubleshoot the error. 

HP Consumer Laptop and Desktop PCs - Boot Device Not Found (3F0) or Automatic Repair Errors Reported...

If the BIOS indicates that Optane is not working, HP recommends Windows be reinstalled from HP Cloud Recovery Tool, but the link to the recovery tool in the document doesn't work and you need to use this link.

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool in Windows 11 and 10 | HP® Support

[Valmor2]

Hi Tk_srq, thank you for your reply. I am not actually getting any error at startup. Instead, the laptop will stay forever in a black screen with the HP logo and a spinning wheel in it.

If I run the recovery tool at startup (F11), none of the available options will work.

If I use the HP Cloud Recovery Tool, I get an error message saying the HDD was not found and then the laptop turns off.

[tk_srq]

Not sure why the hard drive was not detected, as the 512 GB part of the drive past both SMART test and dst test (read test). Maybe Optane volume is corrupted and undetectable. 

My suggestion is to open command prompt from F11, run diskpart utility and see what it says about the drive. If both Optane volume and NVMe are healthy, diskpart would list two disks. If only the NVMe disk is displayed, perhaps, you can try it as a regular NVMe drive and reinstall Windows on it from MS Media Creation Tool. If a "no fixed disk found" error is displayed, the drive is bad and needs to be replaced.

Go to F11 -> Troubleshoot -> Advanced Options -> Command Prompt. At the prompt type diskpart and click Enter. Type list disk and click Enter and see what is displayed. 

[Valmor2]

First, thank you @Tk_srq for taking your time to help me.

In an effort to recover my files I removed the SSD from the laptop and connected it to an USB-C port from another Windows 11 laptop using a NVME SATA SSD Adapter. My goal was the save my files and then reinstall Windows - pictures below.

Basically, the Optane volume is there and is accessible, while the NVMe volume is not there. In the images I believe that the "SSK SSK Storage SCSI Disk Device" is the NVMe volume (SSK is the brand of the NVME/USB adapter I bought yesterday from Amazon). When I look into its properties and events i found a warning that says "Device settings for SCSI\Disk&Ven_SSK&Prod_SSK_Storage\&&3a59e69d&0&000000 were not migrated from previous OS installation due to partial or ambiguous device match.".

My assumption is that the OS can't mount the volume anymore because it messed up with the drivers.

Then I tried to read the SSD from a different laptop, but with Windows 10 instead of Windows 11. In this case it didn't recognize the Optane volume and, while I could see the "SSK Storage" in the attached devices, it was not listed in Explorer. So Windows 10 could not find any volume in the SSD.

Just as an additional note, the laptop was working fine with Windows 10, but after the upgrade to Windows 11 it never rebooted successfully. I truly believe the SSD is not bad, but the OS is missing the drivers to mount the volumes properly.

If that is the case, is there a way we could fix it or, at least, mount the NVMe volume to recover my files while connected to the SSD using the USB adapter?

[tk_srq]

I'm thinking now that there's the possibility that the Windows file system or partition scheme is corrupted. If this happens, the content of the C: drive (Windows partition) is no longer viewable. 

The diskpart command tells you health of the drive. I suggest you try it (see my previous reply). If you type "list disk" and see "no fixed disk found," the drive is no good. If "list disk" displays disk #(0 or 1), type "select disk #" and click Enter then type list partition and click enter. If "unallocated space" or "raw space (or data)" is displayed, the partition table is broken. This means data on the disk is gone.

I have little knowledge of data recovery. I heard of free data recovery software. You may have to search online. Google may be your best friend.