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Cold booting --> hangs on "loading operating system"

F

Freddy1765

Senior member
Strange problem appeared very suddenly about a week ago.

Whenever I cold boot my computer, it hangs on a black screen where it says "loading operating system". This page appears right after the one where I can see it loads the storage drives and says AHCI enabled.
I recently moved my HDD and SSD around inside my case, so my first thought was I'd swapped the SATA cables or something. After checking HDD boot order in BIOS I saw the HDD was number 1 and the SSD (with OS on it) was number 2, so I changed the order.
Still didn't fix the problem though!

To "fix" it I need to hold down the power button when it hangs, at which point the computer starts continuously booting and shutting down every two seconds. To prevent that I flip the switch on the PSU and wait 10 seconds, and then boot it up as I normally would. On this second attempt, it always boots perfectly.
If I restart the computer from desktop it doesn't have any problems booting back into Windows either, only on the first boot of the day. I've never experienced any instability or any other issues with the SSD apart from this sudden failure to boot..

Am I missing something obvious? Build is in sig, and I'm running Win8.
Thanks for any assistance!
 
Which drive has yr OS, the SSD? Or is the mechanical drive a clone of the SSD? I think the former, yes?

If so, to what degree is the SDD occupied?
 
OS is on SSD, and it's only ~60% full.
I swapped the SATA cables, but I won't know if the problem has been resolved until tomorrow..
 
Freddy1765 said:
OS is on SSD, and it's only ~60% full.
I swapped the SATA cables, but I won't know if the problem has been resolved until tomorrow..
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. How does the SSD come up on SMART diagnostics? How old is the SSD?

You can do simple, good, online SMART via Speed fan:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/speedfan.html

Have you tried disconnecting yr mechanical drive just to see if you can then boot normally?

How old is yr PSU?

Did U make any changes to the system just before this started?
 
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When you first installed your OS, were the SSD and HDD both installed, or just the SSD?

If you try to a cold boot with just the SSD installed, does it behave any differently?

What drive(s) are you using on the SATA 2 and SATA 3 connectors?
 
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Thanks for your inputs, but I think I may have solved it.
Swapped the SATA cables around between the two drives, and that seems to have done the trick. I guess the computer was trying to boot the OS from HDD because it was in the same SATA port as the SSD was before this problem began

I'll get back to you once I've confirmed definitively that it's working.
 
I'm gonna bump this thread of mine, because the issue appears to have not been resolved.
I'll try and answer the questions posted above and hope for some help with troubleshooting.

First I'll reiterate the issue, though: When I boot my computer up in the morning, it hangs on a black screen saying "loading operating system". I need to cut the power and reboot for it to properly load into Windows. This issue arose approximately a week ago, when I was moving my storage devices around inside the case. I suspect the SATA cables got mixed, but they have since then been unmixed. The SSD (with OS) is plugged into SATA-3 port 0.
Since i first made this thread, I swapped my HDD for another Evo 840 SSD, plugged into SATA-3 port 1.

My OS SSD is less than 6 months old, and back then when I installed the OS on it, the HDD was plugged in as well. Like I said though, this issue arose very recently. No hardware changes, apart from moving the drives around.

I have no other problems with my computer, no stability issues whatsoever.

I have tried booting up with only the OS drive plugged in, and that does indeed lead to a flawless boot-up, without any hangs. Clearly the drive is fine.

I can run a SMART via Samsung Magician, what am I looking for?
 
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