PC doesn't startup when connecting another HDD

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peeryus

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Hello everyone

My PC doesn't startup if I connect another SATA HDD. It just gets stuck at the "Starting Windows" screen and it takes very long to get here. My mobo is an Asus M3N78-VM. The primary is kept as primary boot device and the other as secondary. Anyone know what could be wrong? I'm running win7 64bit

Thanks
 
you shouldn’t have a problem starting it up with another drive.
The only thing i can think of is its trying to read from the drive ( i might be wrong).
My PC does the same thing if i use a external drive plugged in when i start it up.
 
Are you sure the second HDD is functional?
 
According to the Asus site, SATA 1-3 must be used in IDE mode. What does this mean? My primary (1st boot device) is connected to SATA 1, secondary is on SATA2 and DVD-ROM is on SATA3. SATA 4&5 are empty.
 
And in your BIOS settings are you sure your PC is booting from the correct drive. I know you mentioned that it froze on the Windows screen but you could have had an old install on there somewhere.

GL!
 
peeryus said:
According to the Asus site, SATA 1-3 must be used in IDE mode. What does this mean?
Click to expand...

It means you have to set the SATA controller in the BIOS to IDE mode, rather than AHCI or RAID mode.

Since the first drive works, I'm guessing the setting is correct. Did you maybe use the 2nd drive in another PC? If you did, and it used AHCI mode, there's your problem. It works the other way around too. Happened to me as well a few years back.
 
Ry4n said:
And in your BIOS settings are you sure your PC is booting from the correct drive. I know you mentioned that it froze on the Windows screen but you could have had an old install on there somewhere.

GL!
Click to expand...

I am booting from the correct drive. It was giving me issues so I formatted and installed a fresh copy of Windows.

Thanks
 
TJ99 said:
It means you have to set the SATA controller in the BIOS to IDE mode, rather than AHCI or RAID mode.

Since the first drive works, I'm guessing the setting is correct. Did you maybe use the 2nd drive in another PC? If you did, and it used AHCI mode, there's your problem. It works the other way around too. Happened to me as well a few years back.
Click to expand...

Will check BIOS. From what I remember, chkdsk ran on my primary drive on startup and since then I've been having problems. I formatted & installed windows. How do I check what mode the 2nd drive is on?

Thanks
 
How many primary active partitions do you have on the PC. Windows on Intel-based CPUs boots from the first one enumerated by BIOS and marks the others disabled.
 
peeryus said:
Will check BIOS. From what I remember, chkdsk ran on my primary drive on startup and since then I've been having problems. I formatted & installed windows. How do I check what mode the 2nd drive is on?

Thanks
Click to expand...

There should be just 1 setting for all the drives. The problem is when you use a drive with one option enabled (I think when the partition is created), you can't use it in a system using the other setting without wiping it.

I'm not there of course but I'm pretty sure that's your problem, one was formatted with the controller in IDE mode and the other in AHCI (aka Native) mode. Does the 2nd drive come from another PC? Does it have data on? And does the PC still boot normally if you unplug it?
 
Last edited:
Arthur said:
How many primary active partitions do you have on the PC. Windows on Intel-based CPUs boots from the first one enumerated by BIOS and marks the others disabled.
Click to expand...

No partitions afaik Arthur. Sorry, forgot to mention, I'm running an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+.
 
TJ99 said:
There should be just 1 setting for all the drives. The problem is when you use a drive with one option enabled (I think when the partition is created), you can't use it in a system using the other setting without wiping it.

I'm not there of course but I'm pretty sure that's your problem, one was formatted with the controller in IDE mode and the other in AHCI (aka Native) mode.
Click to expand...

Thing is I need the data from my secondary. Once I can grab what I need from it, I'll wipe it clean. Will use IDE mode since it's recommended by Asus.
 
peeryus said:
Thing is I need the data from my secondary. Once I can grab what I need from it, I'll wipe it clean. Will use IDE mode since it's recommended by Asus.
Click to expand...

What mode is it in now? Did you read my post? If the 2 drives were formatted with 2 different modes, then setting the controller to either one won't work. There will be one drive not working either way, you're just changing which one.
 
Just a thought from my side. What about the extra Hdd putting too much strain on your powersupply. I saw the same thing a few years ago
 
TJ99 said:
What mode is it in now? Did you read my post? If the 2 drives were formatted with 2 different modes, then setting the controller to either one won't work. There will be one drive not working either way, you're just changing which one.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply TJ. What I meant was putting this secondary drive into another PC and saving the data.
 
creeper said:
Just a thought from my side. What about the extra Hdd putting too much strain on your powersupply. I saw the same thing a few years ago
Click to expand...

Now THAT could be possible. Thanks creeper. Will try to find a more powerful psu
 
peeryus said:
Thanks for your reply TJ. What I meant was putting this secondary drive into another PC and saving the data.
Click to expand...

Oh Ok, then wipe all partitions from it and put back in the other PC? Sounds good, hope that works.
 
My guess is it's the psu. Can hear a weird click noise when both hdd's are connected. Running just my primary now and it's fine. Wanna get a +-500W psu.
 
peeryus said:
My guess is it's the psu. Can hear a weird click noise when both hdd's are connected. Running just my primary now and it's fine. Wanna get a +-500W psu.
Click to expand...

What power supply are you using now? What graphics card? Is the PC rebooting or turning off at random times? If not, it's probably not the power supply. Hard drives really don't use a lot of juice. It's possible that it might just be that little needed to push it over the edge though...
 
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