Windows 10: System Refusing to Boot from M.2 after plugging in old SSD boot drive.

So I've been troubleshooting this for the past two hours now and nothing is working.I needed more space on my computer so I remembered the old SSD that used to be the original boot drive for my PC that was just sitting in there unused. I upgraded to the Samsung 960 Evo years ago and used the Samsung Data Migration to move things over.I plugged in the old drive and my computer booted to it instead of the M.2 Samsung 960 EVO that I've been using for the past 5-6 years. I restarted and booted to BIOS to change the boot priority, but my M.2 was not listed. I turned the system off, unplugged the

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old (empty) M.2 drive is still the boot drive

I have an old m.2 drive that was my boot drive with windows installed on it. It's now empty and windows was installed on another drive (SSD). But somehow the original m.2 is considered the boot drive. I cannot select the SSD in the BIOS as the new boot drive. I want to physically remove the M.2 drive from my PC, but it breaks windows if I remove it. Is there a way to make the SSD the boot drive (without reformatting)?

Thank you

 

Unable to Boot to SSD drive, goes to M.2

I bought a new to me desktop PC. I replaced the HDD it had with my old computer's SSD, which has my expected windows 10 image.

The PC was wiped clean before I bought it and I guess is booting to a Windows 11 M.2. So it boots to Win11 via the M.2. I can see my SSD as D: drive.

I went to startup options and don't see my SSD as an option to boot to.

I don't need this M.2 to boot to, only want it to boot to my SSD.

Can this be accomplished and if so, how? Thank you!

 

Bought new M.2 SSD, PC will not boot while it's installed

Hey gents -

I went back to micro center and they absolutely insisted that the SSD I bought is compatible with the motherboard. They thought my problem to be bizarre and suggested that I swap the SSDs around (so that my normal SSD is in the "Ultra M.2" slot and the new empty SSD is in the normal M.2 slot). Well, that made my issue even stranger.

When my normal SSD is plugged into the "Ultra M.2" slot, I am able to get to BIOS and UEFI, but the computer refuses to boot normally. Two boot options show up under my UEFI menu - Realtek PXE and some kind of non-network boot option. Booting with the PXE option launches something called "Realtek Gigabit Ethernet Controller" and presents me with an error: "PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable". Booting with the other option boots the computer as if there is nothing plugged into either slot - it prompts me to plug in a boot device and "press any key".

I do not know what is going on here. If the "Ultra M.2" slot does not work as the above result leads me to believe, why does my computer bug out when the empty drive is plugged into it?

If it would help, I could take photos so you all could get a better idea of what is going on.