2 of 3 Hard drives not working?

Tom Mac · Nov 5, 2021

The thread Title doesn't quite do it. Here it is:
Been running Windows 10 PC with 3 SATA drives (1) ssd (Boot) and (2) HDD s for years. Now the computer will not boot until I disconnect the (2) HDD drives. It will boot the SSD when I disconnect the sata cables from the Mobo. I replaced the sata cables (All 3) and still will not boot unless it's just SSD, with the other two unplugged. Any thoughts?

Windows (10) Pro (20H2)

M4A785TD-M EVO, ASUSTeK

AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor

AMD Radeon R5 420 (1.00 GB)

8Gb Ram (4X2)

Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120GB ATA Device

Any thoughts are welcome, Tom

andrewlen · Nov 5, 2021

Two thoughts. When the drives are connected, have you looked into whether those drives are correctly recognised in the BIOS of your mainboard? Are any SMART errors being reported? Checked that the Boot order sequence hasn't been altered to force the two HDD slaves to be booted from first?

Look here for a manual on your mainboard about how to enter BIOS and check settings.

If all is good on that front, I'd try removing the drives and using a SATA to USB converter or a HDD USB Dock to check that both drives haven't died and are preventing startup. Unlikely they'd both go at the same time, but stranger things have happened. I'm leaning more towards your BIOS having gotten scrambled with this one.

Regards, Andrew

Digerati · Nov 6, 2021

Tom Mac said:
Now the computer will not boot until I disconnect the (2) HDD drives.

It seems you keep troubleshooting with both HDDs at the same time. It sounds to me like one of those two drives could be bad and possibly drawing too much current, causing the power supply to choke.

You need to test with one hard drive at a time. So disconnect just one hard drive and see through a process of elimination, if you can determine which one is bad.

If it doesn't matter and running with either one of the two HDs causes the system to not boot, then I would swap in a known good power supply and see what happens. If the same results, then you have two bad hard drives - and some bad luck, especially if you don't have a current backup of the data stored on those drives.

xrobwx71 · Nov 6, 2021

I would add that, if you can, with one drive installed at a time, to test each with Seatools for Windows. Run the long generic test and let us know the result.

Tom Mac · Nov 6, 2021

Thank you all for your replies. I'll try adding one drive at a time and see what gives. I'm happy that Power Supply was mentioned because in my gut I thought that might be the problem. I'll let you know the outcome.

Thank you all.......Tom

Digerati · Nov 6, 2021

Tom Mac said:
I'm happy that Power Supply was mentioned because in my gut I thought that might be the problem.

Well, power is something that should always be eliminated early on when troubleshooting potential hardware problems - and especially before paying to replace any hardware.

And while it certainly is possible for 2 drives to fail at about the same time, the odds seem unlikely. An excessive surge or spike could take them both out at once. But drives are pretty robust so I would think if that was it, it would take out your RAM, CPU and/or your motherboard too.

So what else is in common? Power.

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