[solved] Internal SSD not recognized after allowing win 8.1 to update

I had auto-updates disabled for a reason ... but today I got the "flag" displayed again that windows updates are waiting and I should install ... and stupid me said yes ...
 
clicked one button ... 66 updates were downloaded, installed and when win 8.1 was trying to reboot it stops with "no bootable device found".
 
when going into BIOS no HD is listed anymore ...
 
but can't really be a HD failure because everything was fine until the update was executed ...
 
BTW this is an ACER Iconia W700 windows tablet ...
 
<< currently waiting for a 2 hour download to complete to get a hopefully bootable USB stick >>

Timely ... just when I started thinking it might be time to go SSD.  Now I can buy something else instead :)

How close are you to the capacity of the drive? Updating can add a lot of MB to the Windows installation, and if the process causes your SSD to run out of space it might fail. 

FreeFlyBertl
when going into BIOS no HD is listed anymore ...
 

 
I suspect that's a key clue. As far as I'm aware Windows simply can not prevent the BIOS from seeing a physical drive because the BIOS loads before Windows does and the drive hardware will tell the BIOS it's a drive.
 
I'd suggest opening up the case and unplugging then re-plugging the relevant SATA cable as a starting point.

Hi
 
Thanks for your replies and suggestions.
 
A little more info: I googled and tried a lot. It appears that (although strange) others have had the same problem that a disk is no longer found after executing updates in win 8 or win 8.1 ... however, most threads end in nirvana ... the usual suggestion found there (SFC, scandisk, etc.) don't help ...
 
The tablet win 8 PC comes only with a single USB port and, of course, no disk drive BUT strangely enough it ships with recovery DVDs (instructions say go and buy a DVD drive! which is what I may try next)
 
Stupid me never created a USB recovery drive directly from that particular tablet PC ... I created one from another win 8 machine this morning but I can't recover using it ... it displays the following messages when executing
 
Refresh your PC: The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again.
Start-up repair: couldn't repair, press "advanced options" to try other options ...
 
I still can't say whether the SSD itself is dead or not (taking it apart is not easy and I want to exhaust other options first), so I tried the LINUX boot from USB ... and here it gets really strange because (while the USB boot to Linux works on my desktop PC and boots to GPART and memtest) I get the following message on the tablet ...
 
 
 
[USB DRIVE LINUX] has been blocked by current security policy. 
 
So this thing just locks me out ... can't go the Linux boot way ... seems like some windows 8 stuff is hardcoded in the BIOS????

A quick googling of the 'security' message you're getting turns up the suggestion that there may be a security setting somewhere in the BIOS screens that is tied to the SSD in question and switching that off will let the BIOS choose another boot disk. Nothing to do with Windows, but a BIOS level security measure.

I've not come across such a BIOS myself but it seems the idea is that if you password BIOS access then even if someone steals your computer they will find it very hard to get at your data. This seems to be a common measure on tablets/laptops. It's the same principle as iPads erasing themselves if someone puts in the wrong password several times or tries to bypass the password and encryption using a PC.

Well, when you do something than something goes wrong the logical place to start is to wonder whether the two things are connected.

And while putting a security system into the BIOS is a good idea, especially on anything portable, it would help if the purchaser was actually told about it in the manual. Not that much actually has a manual these days.