Pc Broken??

xraycat87

xraycat87

xraycat87

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Doncaster
So my pc will no longer boot windows it seems. Its just there with the logo, spinning. Regardless of cmos battery removal etc.

All I did today was unplug everything except mobo, cpu, and both m2 drives.

Installed some new fans, using that fan controller that came with it plugged 2 old Sata drives which wasn't boot drives. And now I can't use my computer.

Not sure what yo do.

But I need it for work ASAP and mentally not great anyway os this is tipping me over
 
Can you get into bios ? (keep pressing DEL when you power up), select Optimized Defaults then check boot priority is your Windows disk, save and reboot. Any luck?
 
Thankfully yes as I was worried something didn't work.

Says everything OK except cpu fail warning but it's here spinning away like normal.

Current and recurring screen it this, keyboard led and mouse led turn off at this stage

 
I might be shooting blanks, but I would try to boot up with one hard drive. The one with windows on it.
When u attached new hard drives, maybe bios changed boot drives, and now windows can't find some silly files.

Try to set up your hardware as it was before u made changes.
 
As above, I would backtrack on the recent changes.
Start with the most basic system you can, hopefully it will work with just your original drive attached. If it does add the other drives and try again.
 
So to confirm the only additions to my sustem are 3 fans. Which replace the old fans.

The only change in terms of removal were 2 Sata 1tb storage drives with pictures etc, no windows files at all.
 
If it posts and starts to boot and the keyboard and mouse light up before the windows initiation then the next stage would be remove all drives other than the one you are most sure that works. It could quite a few things at this point but you have to try to eliminate them one at a time.

Id go with windows first. Take every drive out that isn't the boot drive. If it's the same then you need to pick a drive that doesn't have anything important on and then try a clean install of Windows on that, with no other drives connected. If you dont have the ability to reinstall a clean install of Windows then you are going to be struggling to diagnose it given that you seem to have the essentials of CPU/RAM/Video output working OK. If you really cant get Windows on a USB drive Im sure someone on here would be willing to help you out with a USB drive if you covered postage (not illegal as still would need activated but would at least let you diagnose your issue to some extent). For the record I could help in that regard if required.
 
I see u mention ing hang up,
Time it with a stop watch. See if it hangs up at the same time every time. If it does, try booting in safe mode by mashing f8.
See if it hangs same way. If it does enter bios and give it some time see if it hangs up in bios.

PC freezing on boot can indicate to thermal failures (cpu have no contact with heat sink) or hardware failures like bad cpu or memory.
But this is unlikely.

I have a feeling your windows messed up boot when u added extra drives. If this is the case , your data is safe, and u will fix it by the end of today.
 
Double07 said:
If it posts and starts to boot and the keyboard and mouse light up before the windows initiation then the next stage would be remove all drives other than the one you are most sure that works. It could quite a few things at this point but you have to try to eliminate them one at a time.

Id go with windows first. Take every drive out that isn't the boot drive. If it's the same then you need to pick a drive that doesn't have anything important on and then try a clean install of Windows on that, with no other drives connected. If you dont have the ability to reinstall a clean install of Windows then you are going to be struggling to diagnose it given that you seem to have the essentials of CPU/RAM/Video output working OK. If you really cant get Windows on a USB drive Im sure someone on here would be willing to help you out with a USB drive if you covered postage (not illegal as still would need activated but would at least let you diagnose your issue to some extent). For the record I could help in that regard if required.
Click to expand...
Appriciate the help and I'll be able to create a boot USB on my laptop if I can find a stick.

In terms of unplugging everything, would the ram show up as 16gb on the bios if one was faulty. Or should I play with unplugging that too?
 
xraycat87 said:
Appriciate the help and I'll be able to create a boot USB on my laptop if I can find a stick.

In terms of unplugging everything, would the ram show up as 16gb on the bios if one was faulty. Or should I play with unplugging that too?
Click to expand...

If your system POSTs with the correct amount of RAM being displayed, CPU correct, etc then it's unlikely, although not impossible, thats the issue. Id always try just one stick of RAM just in case, its unlikely but well worth ticking off the list of possibilities as you are looking to minimise the potential areas of failure. Ideally you would have a spare CPU, MOBO, RAM, etc and then it's reasonably easy to determine where the fault lies but that clearly isn't realistic in most cases. You have to look at what you have available, where the failure is most likely to be, and use that as a starting point and work from there. If it POSTs, RAM and CPU report as normal and you can enter BIOS then I'd be looking at Windows, including potential issues with HDDs, etc. Rule out each issue one by one and you narrow down the potential points of failure.

** EDIT** If you know how you could put an install of a USB bootable Linux distro on a flash drive and just run through that to see if that works, gives you a pretty good indication if the other components are behaving normally and doesn't require any HDD. **
 
I'll head up in a moment as I needed a mental break.

I know my two drives were showing in the bios. But I'll add the 2 Sata drives first as that's all the hardware I had previously.
 
xraycat87 said:
I'll head up in a moment as I needed a mental break.

I know my two drives were showing in the bios. But I'll add the 2 Sata drives first as that's all the hardware I had previously.
Click to expand...

If you installed Windows when these drives were connected, then you'll usually find that Windows in its infinite stupidity has put a system reserved partition on one of these drive, hence why is not longer boots.
 
Journey said:
If you installed Windows when these drives were connected, then you'll usually find that Windows in its infinite stupidity has put a system reserved partition on one of these drive, hence why is not longer boots.
Click to expand...

This is a very real possibility and why I've recommended a clean install on a completely re-partitioned dive just to rule out Windows being Windows or the drive itself being an issue.
 
Double07 said:
This is a very real possibility and why I've recommended a clean install on a completely re-partitioned dive just to rule out Windows being Windows or the drive itself being an issue.
Click to expand...

No need to re-install if it works with the drives back in, you can just manually create the System Reserved partition on the other drive, and copy the data across, make it active and name it correctly and it should behave like nothing has changed.
 


Thought before adding the drives I'll quickly take out few bits and no luck. Doesn't pass the mobo logo screen after bios. So doesn't even load windows..
 
Journey said:
No need to re-install if it works with the drives back in, you can just manually create the System Reserved partition on the other drive, and copy the data across, make it active and name it correctly and it should behave like nothing has changed.
Click to expand...

Well yes but if you dont have anything thats particularly important on the drive its way easier to just sack it, and avoid the hassle. I get that's not always an option but if it is then its way easier to just partition and take it from there for a lot of people. When you are frustrated by an issue like this its not always easy to take the high road! It's often difficult to ascertain on a forum a persons level of comfort/knowledge in relation to the options available to them I suppose.
 
Right. I'm in Windows.. So something is linked to those two drives. And I don't know what. And because they've taken space I can't cable manage my case ha. So I need a new case?

Another thing in order to have both Sata drives working, I had to unplug 3 pc fans which are connected to a single data power cable.

That wouldn't of caused an issue right?
 
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