Secondary drive prevents OS from booting?

[fx_rage]

My computer freezes at the "Windows is starting" and I have narrowed it down to my secondary HDD. When it is plugged in, the PC can see it in the BIOS but it refuses to boot into Windows with it plugged in. I have tried all the SATA ports and have tried other devices in the SATA ports as well - it seems to be the HDD.

Any ideas besides swapping it into another pc and seeing what happens? Could it be a bad sata cable? Should I try it in another PC and reformat it and try?

I'm reluctant to do so as it would require a lot of work, my pc is a unique build.

 

[BFG10K]

I’ve had a similar problem with a faulty Seagate drive, except my main WD drive wasn’t even recognized by the BIOS if the former was plugged in.

Try swapping the SATA cables around for both drives, but it’s probably the drive.

 

[taltamir]

After plugging it in, make sure the bios is set to boot from the correct drive. It could be looking into the newly plugged drive first and due to it having some leftover junk in terms of booting, it fails to boot.
If that is the case you can reconstruct the MBR on that drive

 

[sm625]

Yep verify your boot order. My 1TB media drive has an old windows installation on it and who knows if it would actually boot or what would happen if it tried. You could also try a SATA pci card like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815280001

 

[Nothinman]

There's a lot of variables and Windows doesn't give you any hints as to what it's doing so you're kind of screwed from that perspective. If putting the drive in another PC is a PITA you could boot a Linux Live CD and see if it boots and can access the drive.

 

[Old Hippie]

I've had it happen and it just sounds like a bad drive.

It may freeze any computer when installed so I'd try it in a USB case.