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Signs of HD failure, or something else?

J

JuffoWup25

Junior Member
I built a computer a few years ago (MSI mobo, 3GHz Intel processor) that started having some issues yesterday. The computer has two hard drives, a 750 GB primary and a 150 GB secondary (HD from my previous computer), and I've been running it for a long time with the 750 GB HD near full (<20 GB remaining).

Yesterday the computer turned itself off unexpectedly during normal web browsing, and would crash after the Windows logo when I restarted it (or after loading drivers in safe mode). Thinking the HD might be faulty, I disconnected the primary and tried booting up on the secondary, which worked. Then I disconnected the secondary and reconnected the primary, and the computer was also able to boot up. However when I reconnected both the primary and secondary drives, the computer would crash after the Windows logo again.

At the moment I'm able to run the computer with just the primary HD connected, but there's been some other weird behavior: once the computer showed that it was loading when I'd try to open a program or the task manager, but then wouldn't actually load anything.

Do the above symptoms suggest that my primary HD is on the way out, or could there be a problem with my mobo? I've never heard of a situation in which a computer could boot off two drives separately but would fail with both connected.

Thanks very much; let me know if there's anything I could check and I'd be happy to report results.
 
Well the first way would be to separately test out the two hard drives. Put one in a separate machine then scan it with the manufacture's software to see if it passes extended tests. Then do the same thing to the other HDD. If they both are fine then I say it is either the mobo or controller for the drives.
 
Could be *either* hard drive gone bad. Could be a bad motherboard. Could be bad memory. Could be malware. Could even be a bad video card.

Check the event logs. Analyze any minidump files. Run chkdsk on the hard drives. Set Windows not to automatically restart on failure during startup. You're fishing for any additional information you can get to narrow down the problem.
 
I assume that the secondary HDD does not have any OS installed in it so I think you can boot but not load the OS. Maybe there is something on the secondary HDD that is causing a conflict with the OS and making it crash when it tries to load the OS.

I suggest that you try your secondary HDD on another PC and if it starts like normal then remove all your important data and do a clean format on the secondary HDD. Install the clean formatted HDD to the PC with the primary HDD and test if it crashes again. If it does crash again then there is something else at fault.
 
Start with the simple things first.

Clear the CMOS.
While you're in there look for any bulging or blown capacitors.
 
PSU. I would put money on it. So you say that it shuts down when everything that draws a current is hooked up and it just so happens that it shuts down at the point of boot-up when the most current is being drawn from the power supply? Try the PSU before you do anything else.
 
Yeah, check the PSU.
Also check for dust, clean out your CPU and GPU heatsinks, it might be shutting down if it's overheating.
 
Awesome; thanks for all the help so far. Heat wasn't a problem, but I noticed that there was a lot of dust on my power supply inlet (under the computer in my case). I'll get some compressed air to clean it out then check the other things people suggested.
 
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