Strange boot problem with laptop.

[Liquid_funk]

Hello everyone, thanks for taking the time to check my thread.

My laptop has been having a strange problem. I run windows 7 from a Kingston SSD and have a separate 750gb Scorpio black hdd which only has university work, a few games and fl studio.

When I enter my password at the welcome screen the screen will remain black and only the mouse cursor will move. Sometimes after 30+ minutes it will finally load the desktop and everything works as usual. Sometimes I have to do a hard restart until eventually it will load the desktop.

I've run a diagnostic tool on my SSD and it said it has 98% health. Windows is the only thing on the drive.

Naturally my next thought was that windows was failing so I was about to reinstall windows 10 from a USB however I first took out my Scorpio black. To my surprise the laptop loaded straight up onto the desktop after I put my password in. This was not a fluke as I restarted and shutdown the laptop several more times and each time it loaded perfectly without the Scorpio. As soon as I insert the Scorpio back in the laptop is back to its usual tricks of waiting 30+ minutes to load the desktop. Clearly this suggests that the problem lies with the Scorpio black.

The data I had on the Scorpio has been backed up luckily but is there any way of reformatting the Scorpio black without having to get it to boot from startup?

Or if anyone has alternative suggestions or potential fixes I'd welcome them. Thanks for your time!

 

[Liquid_funk]

Hi Danny, thanks for your reply.

I'm not currently able to boot it with the Scorpio inserted. I've just ordered a SATA to USB cable to try and access the drive that way. If this is unsuccessful I will try what you suggested with hot-plugging. Currently by just using the SSD I'm able to use Word, use the internet and do all the basic tasks I need to which is a relief.

 

[Liquid_funk]

Hi Simon, thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I am unable to do anything in the black screen other than move the mouse cursor.

To update the problem: I have purchased a USB to SATA cable and connected the Scorpio to my laptop using this. However despite the drive showing up under the 'My Computer' tab, when I right click it or try to access the drive, the egg timer appears and explorer freezes until the drive is unplugged. I've also tried running a chkdsk command on the drive while it's been plugged in via USB however that seems unresponsive.

If this means the drive is beyond saving then fair enough, although there were a few files I would have like to have recovered I got the really important things off.