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Erika KoelleFlag for United States of America

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Dell Optiplex 960 - Crucial SSD - No boot device available

Anyone run into similar issues like me with more than one machine.  I frequently buy Dell Optiplex 960's on eBay and stick a Crucial SSD drive in it to run Windows 7 x64.  It seems that this past year, I've been encountering some problems with this combination.  Either when the machine is first turned on it'll say "No boot device available" or it'll Blue Screen on the user while they're working and it'll just crash and then on reboot say "No boot device available" as if the drive disconnected itself while everything was running.

The fix is to reboot a few times and eventually it works again.  Sometime is runs for months with no crashes, but lately one machine has been crashing twice a day.

I can get you more specific information like BIOS Firmware version of the Dell and specific info about the Crucial drives I use.  For now I'm hoping someone has had a similar experience and has a fix for it.

Regards,
Erika
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☠ MASQ ☠

Make sure your SATA Mode in the BIOS is set to "AHCI" and not the default "RAID ON"
Also, make sure you are running the latest BIOS version.
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Pretty sure Dell BIOS was updated as soon as I got the computer.  I tried AHCI but it still kept giving the error about "No boot device available"

I read something about legacy mode, but I'd have to check if that's even an option in the BIOS.  I also read that sometimes there are issues when there's a 2nd drive in the machine that's not SSD.
Latest BIOS is A18, No UEFI (Legacy Mode isn't an issue), you could try using the RST drivers direct from Intel rather than the Dell version but the other possibility is occasionally you're going to end up buying one that has developed an intermittent fault.  960's are very nearly reaching their 10th birthday now.
No boot device, either you erred and not connected, powered the SSD or the Sata cable is not good, connected....

Check Sata ports ......
Identifying the failed, not working component.....
i would test with another brand, like Kingston, or Samsung, -Intel
i never had that kind of issue with those
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Erika Koelle
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glad to hear you found the problem
up to now - i saw not one mention on how to repair an SSD drive
For the sake of educating the public, I'm going to post some pictures of the open SSD.
SSD_BrokenConnector.JPG
SSD_Otherside.JPG
SSD_SATACable_brokenoffpieceinit.JPG
USB_SATA_Connector.JPG
Broken hardware