Question Adding second SSD is causing boot issues in Windows 10 and 11 ?

[doctorhr2]

This is an issue that has been dogging me for about 9 months now, on and off, but I'll cut to the latest incident:

My install of Windows 11 (upgraded from 10, which was upgraded from 7) decided it didn't want to boot up, so I grabbed a new 2TB Crucial SSD and did a clean install of Windows 11. All was going well until I decided to format another SSD to use as a Games drive by hooking it up in a caddy via USB. When I came to put it in the machine and fire it up, it wouldn't boot. By not booting I mean it goes as far as the screen that says 'Press Delete to enter BIOS' and freezes there.

I have managed to get the machine back up and running by going back to just my OS SSD and resetting the CMOS, and then going through the BIOS settings. I have an MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus MB, which I have flashed to the latest BIOS, a 4TB HDD (formatted to GPT) which has remained connected the whole time. I have checked that the OS drive is connected to SATA port 1 and the BIOS is set to UEFI. The BOOT settings are correct. This problem has occurred with both Windows 10 and now 11 and I'm stumped as to what the problem could be. Adding another SSD seems to screw the BOOT record up and even spamming F11 to boot from the OS drive just gives me a black screen with a cursor in the top corner.

I've run drive checking software and everything seems to be healthy. I have a Corsair 850w PSU so I would be amazed if it was a power issue. I've spent a few hours Googling and going through similar issues on here, but no joy. In the meantime I can use the drive via USB, but it's not an ideal solution or should it be neccessary.

 

[doctorhr2]

Update: I swapped the SATA cable on my main drive and tried connecting the 2nd SSD via a new USB caddy, and it froze on boot! I realised that at no point had I disconnected the 4TB HDD, so I booted up again with just the OS SSD connected and it worked. Repeated with OS SSD and 2nd SSD plugged it and it worked. Connected the 4TB drive and it still worked! I have no idea if there is an issue still lurking or what may have been causing it, but if I get a freeze on boot again, I will run through that procedure again and see what happens.

 

[bitbugin]

Update: I swapped the SATA cable on my main drive and tried connecting the 2nd SSD via a new USB caddy, and it froze on boot! I realised that at no point had I disconnected the 4TB HDD, so I booted up again with just the OS SSD connected and it worked. Repeated with OS SSD and 2nd SSD plugged it and it worked. Connected the 4TB drive and it still worked! I have no idea if there is an issue still lurking or what may have been causing it, but if I get a freeze on boot again, I will run through that procedure again and see what happens.

Disconnecting the WD 4TB HDD worked for me, too! That is so weird, just connecting a 2nd SSD messed up booting from the first SSD with Windows 10 from booting up!!! It did not even recognize the first SSD after connecting a 2nd SSD!!! Disconnecting the 2nd SSD still did not work until I disconnected also the 4TB HDD. So, starting with only one SATA device connected will boot up again, then adding one SATA device at a time seems to be normal again. I can see the process of elimination at work here 😂That scared me!! What a pain!! 😂