HDD preventing boot from SSD

Reikrak · December 4, 2015

Hey guys, I've been having a problem with my setup for the past few days. I put the system together abouth a year ago and the main components are as follows:

MSI H97 Gaming 3 Motherboard
Intel Core i7-4790
Corsair CX-750
Geforce GTX770
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3
Samsung 840EVO 120 GB
WD Black 2TB

The system has worked fine until the past three days when it suddently wouldn't get past the windows logo on boot. I messed with it a bit and figured the problem is the HDD. I use the SSD for the operating system and HDD for data, and long story short if I try to boot with only the SSD connected it works fine, if I try to boot with both connected it gets stuck on boot.

I checked bios and all that stuff and everything looks good (and it has been working fine for a year...) so I don't really know what could be the problem.

Any tips?

techguru · December 4, 2015

Hey guys, I've been having a problem with my setup for the past few days. I put the system together abouth a year ago and the main components are as follows:

MSI H97 Gaming 3 Motherboard

Intel Core i7-4790

Corsair CX-750

Geforce GTX770

Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3

Samsung 840EVO 120 GB

WD Black 2TB

The system has worked fine until the past three days when it suddently wouldn't get past the windows logo on boot. I messed with it a bit and figured the problem is the HDD. I use the SSD for the operating system and HDD for data, and long story short if I try to boot with only the SSD connected it works fine, if I try to boot with both connected it gets stuck on boot.

I checked bios and all that stuff and everything looks good (and it has been working fine for a year...) so I don't really know what could be the problem.

Any tips?

kinda sounds to be like the hdd is either corrupt or on its way to dying

I would backup the data on it to another drive

then zero out the drive and maybe do some tests on it

either that or the sata cable is bad

Niktendo · December 5, 2015

What might be happening is that when your system boots (just like any other system, including mine), it checks for all of your devices that are plugged into the mainboard, including your HDD. If you are having an issue where the SSD by itself boots up fine, but find that with the HDD mixed in slows down the boot up process, it could be the HDD that's causing the boot up issue. If you have another system you can plug the HDD into, I would test it with some software that will analyze the HDD and check to see if there's errors and/or bad sectors on the HDD. A good recommendation for software would be "Parted Magic". I personally use that software both at home and where I work at, where I usually get 2-3 computers running tests with Parted Magic.