PC POST in Safe Mode & HDD issue

[BorisL]

Not 100% sure if this is the right category to post it in, but since it has to do with POST I assume it is :D

 

So, I use my PC every day for work, and for gaming / entertainment and whatnot, meaning it's usually on the entire day from let's say 10AM to midnight.
It works flawlessly while it's on, 0 complaints there.
However for the past week or so (never happened to me in years)
Whenever I turn my PC on the FIRST time of the day, the following happens:
I see the ASUS logo on boot
My HDD starts acting SUPER weird - it starts spinning up and then making a clicking noise, for let's say around 6 times, and then I get a "Your system has POST-ed in Safe Mode" bla bla
I then press F10, it sends me into BIOS, where I can simply F10 to save & restart, and it boots absolutely normal like it used to.
My motherboard is ASUS PRIME A320M-K
This happens only ONCE per day. If I shut it down during the day and turn it back on, it works normally.

Note: My storage consists of:
SATA 128 GB SSD (Windows & Basic apps storage)
HDD (raw media storage)
M.2 NVMe 1TB SSD (main storage for everyday apps, games, etc.)

It's really out of my mind why the HDD would be doing this when it's not even a system drive.
I've ran health checks with HDD Sentinel and it returned 100% health, and while in usage, it works normally too. Write / Read speeds as normal, can use apps stored on it for hours without any issues.

TL;DR -
HDD (non-system storage) spins up and makes a clicking noise ~ 6 times during boot, making the PC POST in Safe Mode, after which everything works normally.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

[Haro]

This is a stupid question but have you tried 

Updating the bios 

Changing the sata data/power cable 

Using the HDD in another system just to make sure it's not causing the problem 

[BorisL]

2 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

This is a stupid question but have you tried 

Updating the bios 

Changing the sata data/power cable 

Using the HDD in another system just to make sure it's not causing the problem 

@TofuHaroto BIOS on the latest version, tried 2 different cables, one which was from a different system with a working cable. Tried it in another system too with no luck.
I mean it's better to check just in case  

[Haro]

Just now, BorisL said:

BIOS on the latest version, tried 2 different cables, one which was from a different system with a working cable. Tried it in another system too with no luck.
I mean it's better to check just in case  

Does this still happen when the HDD is unplugged ?

[ZephCloud]

Just take a look in hwinfo64 or crystaldiskinfo...if the hdd is dying it'll have alert...

[BorisL]

Neither reported any problems @ZephCloud
Nope @TofuHaroto


One thing I did remember though, is that a day BEFORE this started happening, I accidentally put my PC to sleep through Windows start menu. Could this be related to the issue maybe?

[Haro]

2 minutes ago, BorisL said:

Could this be related to the issue maybe?

Idk if it could I mean I always do it and I'm reading and writing off of my HDD just fine