I'm having a weird issue while booting my Arch Linux on an external SSD connected via a SATA-to-USB adapter

About half the time on boot, it drops straight into the emergency shell showing:

ERROR: device 'UUID=<uuid>' not found. Skipping fsck. mount: /new_root: can't find UUID=<uuid>. ERROR: Failed to mount 'UUID=<uuid>' on real root You are now being dropped into an emergency shell. sh: can't access tty; job control turned off [rootfs ~]#

The other 50% of the time it boots up into Arch with zero issues but on my desktop PC: It boots reliably 100% of the time, idk why this issue happens only when i connect the SSD to my laptop?

For context:

• Arch installed directly onto the SSD over USB
• HOOKS in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf has block and udev in place
• I even tried adding MODULES=(usb_storage uas) in mkinitcpio.conf but didn't solve the issue either
• The issue persists doesn't matter which port in laptop i connect to

Has anyone encountered this specific laptop-vs-desktop behavior with SATA-to-USB adapters?Any suggestions on how to make it boot consistently on the laptop