Question My SSD freezes after booting

[dan99t]

Hi,
I am using Dell workstation T-7500 with Win-7. I use 500GB SSD as my boot drive & others 3TBs 3 of them as storage. I have been using this PC for over 10 years. Today I was working & downloaded some stock market data which I do every Saturday. After that I connected 3, 3TB HDD SATA III drives to back up this data & rebooted the PC. But then it boots ok but I can not open any files, folders, websites etc. So I tried rebooting several times & came across same problem.
So put a cloned HDD & put SSD as a slave drive & found the same problem with the HDD too.
So I changed the SATA Cable & that too did not help.
Then I put the SSD in 2nd SATA slot & it didn't work. All these times I disconnected 3 TB HDD for elimination process. Nothing worked. Finally I put just the cloned HDD in 2nd slot which I use to cone SSD to HDD & it didn't work so by this time I was frusted & had something to eat. Then all of a sudden that HDD in 2nd slot all of a sudden worked.
So I replaced it by SSD which had the downloaded data & connected one 3 TB HDD to back up data as fast as I can which I did. Now I am scared to shut down the PC & connect rest of the HDDs ( 3 x 3TB HDDs & a 500 GB HDD to clone this SSD so that I will have backed up data & a new Cloned HDD in case something goes wrong.
But before I do that I thought I better take advice from experts on this forum in case I run into same problem.
My room has A/C running so that eliminates probably overheating.

Please advice.

Thank You

 

[Tech Junky]

over 10 years.

I would be planning an upgrade to a new system.

Drive access and os freezes could be many things. Maybe the first thing would be booting into Linux from a USB drive and see if the problems follow. If they don't then it's the w7 causing the issue. If they don't follow then it's going to be hardware.

 

[Shmee]

Without further diagnostics, it is hard to tell the cause of the problem. I agree that you should boot into a Linux live USB, and backup any data needed first, and then test. Next I would test the SMART data on the drives, to check their health. I would also run memtest86, it could be a memory issue, and the RAM should be easy enough and cheap enough to replace if need be. But it could also be the motherboard.

It could also just be the Windows 7 install, as mentioned. If the SMART checks out and memtest86 passes, I would lean towards this or motherboard being the culprit. Either way, given the age of the computer, I would lean towards a new build at this point.

So, basically do important backing up first, then testing, and then decide if it is worth fixing.

 

[dan99t]

When none of the icons on desktop work, how do I back Up ?
It boots & shows desktop & icons but can't click & open any of them including windows explorer.

 

[Shmee]

When none of the icons on desktop work, how do I back Up ?
It boots & shows desktop & icons but can't click & open any of them including windows explorer.

You would need to boot from another OS, typically a live Linux USB, to recover the data, if possible. Though there is a possibility that this is not a software problem, that it is hardware. In which case you may need a data recovery service, if the drive(s) are failing.

But I would try booting linux first to test and try data transfer yourself.

 

[Tech Junky]

Linux USB

@dan99t
This rules out the OS and then means there's a HW issue to troubleshoot. If everything is accessible under Linux after mounting the drive then it's likely the Windows OS being corrupt. If the OS is corrupt then either backup things as needed or just wipe and reinstall.