Very weird new build issue

dod · 29 Nov 2023 at 19:15

This is a strange one.

My old system finally gave up the ghost last week and for the first time in about 10 years I build up a new system. Old motherboard was running two SSD's and 4 SATA HDD's for mainly photo storage. One day it just failed to boot, kept saying it couldn't find a boot drive and I assumed it was the drive that had gone. Bought a new one, reloaded windows and not all the drives were showing so accepted it was most likely the mobo and started buying stuff.

MSI 650 Tomahawk - latest official BIOS
Ryzen 7600
32GB crucial 5600 DDR5
WD blue SN570 SSD boot drive
WD Black SN770 2TB secondary drive
Corsair RM1000X PSU

Loaded windows 10 without any problems, updated drivers and then started reinstalling the storage drives.

First one loaded no problem, shows up in bios, access it from the desktop no problem.
Second goes in and it shows up in the BIOS but loading windows sticks after the second logo in the boot up sequence.
Try the next drive, exactly the same, and so on.

OKay, bad news I'm thinking, three drives gone. Just load up the one good oner again and it wont boot either. Uninstall it and now the whole system, won't boot.

Any suggestions?

dod · 30 Nov 2023 at 07:47

starting to suspect the PSU might be an issue here. Put back in the old board with the original boot drive and it powered up. Installed individual drives and they all powered up, loaded windows etc. Started installing drives and when it got to two SSD and two STAT 3.5 drives it gave up again. Try to pick one up later and see what the score is :confused:

[HB]Rugrat · 30 Nov 2023 at 12:01

MBR related issues? Has the boot drive been reformatted and had a fresh install of windows on? I've had some crazy issues over the years when reattaching storage drives AFTER reformatting an old boot drive (esp if those additional drives have been used as boot drives in the past).

dod · 30 Nov 2023 at 12:05

[HB]Rugrat said:
MBR related issues? Has the boot drive been reformatted and had a fresh install of windows on? I've had some crazy issues over the years when reattaching storage drives AFTER reformatting an old boot drive (esp if those additional drives have been used as boot drives in the past).

thanks for the reply.

Yes, on two different drives and in two different systems effectively. The data drives have never been used as boot drives, only data. I've ordered a new PSU in the meantime and will see how that does.

[HB]Rugrat · 30 Nov 2023 at 12:16

Does it go back to working properly if you just use the boot drive? Having had weird PSU issues lately I can well believe it's as simple as that but it does seem a bit... odd.

dod · 30 Nov 2023 at 12:33

It was, now it isn't. PSU is the only common thing in this, apart from the GPU which I can't see making any difference. .

Old system was a new 512GB Samsung SSD boot drive (replaced the one I thought was faulty) , 16GB ram, Asus board.
New one is new WD M2 1GB drive, MSI board and 32GB ram.

Done multiple clean W10 installs now. (I suspect if I do another install it will work fine for a while again but not done it yet. )

Ran the full specs through a couple of PSU speccing sites and the current one should be adequate.

Edit:

(I suspect if I do another install it will work fine for a while again but not done it yet. )

Yep, clean install, boots up no bother, add a single disk, all good. Add a second and no boot. FFS :confused:

dod · 30 Nov 2023 at 22:18

I give up. New psu in, brand new w10 install, again, boots up perfectly.
Add one of the old drives and it just doesn’t boot. Just sits on a black screen after the first boot up splash screen.

Got a new 3.5” sata hdd coming tomorrow to see if it does the same with a new drive. If it doesn’t I’ll get some more and an external enclosure to try to get the data off and taking the existing disks out of the boot up sequence

Strangest thing I’ve ever dealt with

dod · 1 Dec 2023 at 20:45

Well, i have no idea what was going on.
new hdd arrived and thought I might as well give it a go. Installed it, booted up fine, got it set up , all good. Rebooted and it worked!

on a high I thought I’d try the rest of the drives and one by one they installed and worked. It’s like installing a new drive cleared whatever blockage was causing the boot failure.

So, now got a fully working pc again, nice And quick and should see me for a good while

cs2000 · 2 Dec 2023 at 22:25

I dont think anyone has mentioned it, but its worth throwing into the hat i guess.

Sometimes windows does weird things (understatement of the year, yes). It can install windows onto one drive, but install other files like the boot sector on another drive if you have multiple drives connected at windows install time. Im not saying this would have happened, but it could be that your second storage drive actually contains a boot sector from your old build & windows is trying and failing to boot from that possibly?

If you number the disks 1,2,3,4, is it always disk 1 that works and 2 that fails, or is it any single disk works and any multiples thereafter fail to boot? Also check the sata cables. You dont (usually) get a whole bunch of free ones in the motherboard box like you used to and they are relatively easy to damage.