Win 11 installed on 100GB SSD partition, booted once, now that partition is gone!

Hello all!
I just joined here in hopes to resolve this matter. Here's what happened. I had a failing win 7 64 install on an SSD and on another HDD I had win 10 pro. I was having some trouble connecting to the web on both OS systems. I didn't really want to install 11 but I had no use for the 7 OS. I shuffled around files I wanted to keep and free'd up the entire 1TB SSD. I made a 100GB partition for win 11 to install (in case there was an issue I could just format that partition and be done with it, or so I thought). The install went smooth and I was surprised!

I booted it and made sure I had drivers ready to install. After I finished updating drivers without any internet (I had them all downloaded previously through my phone and transferred to my win 10 OS. I accessed the files and installed all ASRock had available for my older MB (990FX Fatality Killer) and AMD 8 core (FX8350) CPU as well as my AMD RX590 GPU. All installs went smooth and I again was very surprised, since I had to fight to get win 10 drivers installed taking literally weeks.

I rebooted again and made sure that my bios was booting from the correct drive. It was a long day and I didn't want to have to wait for win 10 to boot by mistake and restart again. Everything was set and I didn't need to change anything.

But it booted to win 10 anyway!? I restart and check the boot order and I couldn't find that partition in my bios? I looked in win 10 to see what was up and it was not showing up in there either but the 900GB blank partition was there and I formatted it right away and gave it a letter. I considered accessing it through a file on win 11 originally. This drive was going to used to store and play games from if the win 11 install was bad and I was considering installing win 10 on that failed win 11 partition.

The reason I didn't install 10 on the SSD was due to the idea that I was just going to test win 10 once again (tried it 7 years earlier and hated it but loved win 7) so I installed on an old 500GB HDD while 7 remained on the SSD (it was fully functional except I couldn't get any gamepads to work on it after I reinstalled it on the SSD).

So my problem now is, how do I recover that lost partition that has the fresh win 11 install?

I have looked using a few partition tools and it doesn't even show up as a partition?

I'm glad I was smart enough to make a smaller partition in case this happened and I actually didn't really care much about the disappearing act. I figured it had to do with Microsoft's relentless push to cleanse the world of their previous OS and make sure you conform with their new spyware OS's of the near future. I figured if there was a compatibility issue the install would not allow me to continue. Since I'm using an older set up (works fine for what I need) there may be something that wasn't "new" enough. I don't think it has TPM and I know it had Compatibility Mode turned on in bios.

From what I've read, turning on compatibility mode at the wrong time can cause huge problems on these older boards. I have not flipped that switch since I have sorted out my win 10 Internet connectivity issues since the failed win 11 install and had little concern about win 11.

What gets me is how MS has taken part of my SSD from me! The more I think about it the more I want to get that space back for my own use! I paid for it and don't see how MS can simply steal it from me for some unexplained reason.

I have not seen any other similar issues reported on the web. I can't see how it booted (at least once but I'm starting to think it actually booted 2 times before it disappeared) and I was able to use it without any problems for those first times. I had not even installed anything but current drivers band for the 1st time in a very long time, I had drivers on every single item listed in the comp manager!

Win 10 still has a mystery device that I have never been able to get a driver installed. No idea what it is and simply disabled it a long time ago, I'll go back and try a few drivers every so often, but again I really don't care as long as I'm able to do what I want.

My MB says version P1.00 which I believe is the last firmware version microcode update 600F20/6000817, I have reduced my memory from 32GB to 16GB @ DDR3-1866. It's capable of 2400 and I have a matching set of 4 out of a set of 6 matched pieces. It is marked as 6 pieces but a comp I bought had only those 4 in it. I'm running 2 since I have a huge cooler on the CPU and I really don't need more than 16GB, it should not get as hot but I'm seeing stuttering in GTAV and crashes lately that I can't figure out. All men passed tests even with all 4 installed at max speed this board allows.
It also tests fine at 2400 on an Intel rig that got water damage. All other games I've tried run fine but there have been times where it stops and I have to hard restart.

Passes all stress tests for both CPU and GPU, never passing 72 degrees with both running 100% for 5 minutes. It hits 72 in the first minute then never exceeds

Any help on either problem would be great. If I hear nothing back, that's fine as well. I'm changing some bios settings now and doing some tests. If it works I'll post my bios settings and if I find no change, I won't worry too much since I'm not really a gamer but like to have something available.

TY for reading. I try to cover most important stuff to reduce constantly adding more info that delays possible answers

Please make a new post indicating the problem that you have that you want to fix.

Post a share link displaying disk management: How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management



For troublshooting the crashes run the V2 log collector > post a share link

Welcome to the forum. In all honesty, I couldn't follow your post but from the gist of it, I believe your BCD wrote to the wrong drive. When clean installing, one should always disconnect all other drives until the OS has booted to insure BCD gets written to your system drive. Step 2 in tutorial below.

zinda said:

I made a 100GB partition for win 11 to install (

Click to expand...

Another mistake is you should not have installed 11 on a partition. You should have left the space unallocated. When one does an OS install, its must be installed on unallocated space.
Step 10 here
Clean Install Windows 11 Tutorial

. As zbook said we need a screenshot of disk management.

I cleared my SSD and I formatted it, then I had only the SSD connected. Used win 11 install from a USB jump drive prepared with Rufus. Used it to make a 100GB partition on that drive and left the other 900GB as unformatted RAW. Installed Win 11 then it booted to win 11 and I turned it off and reconnected my other drives so I could retrieve drivers I had saved on another hard drive. I installed all drivers and rebooted. It booted to the old win 10 copy that's on another hard drive|. That install was put on an old HDD so I didn't need to erase my then working win 7 installation that was on the SSD before I wiped it to install win 11.

I installed Win 10 years earlier as an upgrade to a win 7 install and ended up reversing it (that was on another HDD that failed and I got the SSD to do a fresh win 7 install). Since I could not get drivers to install on my gamepad, I had to install win 10.once again, so I used an old HDD in case I had any problems. At that time I still had files in the win 7 install and could get on line and use it so I kept it around.

Because I was unsure of win 11 even installing on my rig, I made the partition small and kept the win 10 (that at the time had troubles connecting to the internet) to save files and drivers.

After it booted to win 10 and not win 11 after I installed drivers, I restarted and checked my bios settings to make sure the correct drive was set. I could not find that drive listed in my bios.

I booted to win 10 again and checked out the comp manager list to see if the SSD was showing as a drive and it was, but only as an unallocated 900GB partition. I went ahead and formatted it so I could use it as storage and I never saw the win 11 OS or that 100GB partition ever again.

I have since fixed my win 10 Internet access and it's been a few months since the win 11 install issue. I tried to figure out how to get that 100GB partition formatted but it will not show up as a partition at all. It's like it vanished and the drive is now a 900GB drive.

What I forgot to mention was my old win 7 install was over 10 years old and when that drive failed I had to do a new win 7 install and that's when I couldn't find drivers for my game pad that was working in the original win 7 os. That's why I tried win 10 again but as a clean install on another old drive. After it lost Internet access I wiped the SSD that had win 7 OS and installed Win 11 on the new 100GB partition I created using win 11.

I normally would not have made a partition for my OS install but did it in case there was an issue with the requirements needed to install win 11 and figure I could just reformat that partition if needed. I'm now using 10 without any problems and still can't find the 11 install or that partition after a few months.