I custom built my PC 4 years ago. Within the past couple months it started failing to boot & I'd have to power off and on a couple times to get it to stick. It just got worse from there, it'd take more and more restarts until finally, yesterday, I sat for far too long pressing that damned power button that it actually got stuck on. So I cut power, opened it up, unhooked everything but the HDD, tried the memory stick test, tried combos of connections, cleaned contacts, nothing.
Booting was a rarity. Last night I decided to get into BIOS and fiddle around. Both my HDD and external HD were present in EZ mode and advanced. They didn't appear to have any problems. And now, when I CAN get it to boot, it goes directly into BIOS and I can't get windows to boot. Then it goes back to black screen, not even a flashing cursor.
This is my first custom build. I back up fairly often but this was unexpected and have very important files on the hard drive I gotta retrieve. I've pretty much resigned to the idea of replacing parts, even though there never appeared to be anything wrong with any components when it DID boot up. Windows 8 is installed on the WD internal HDD. I was stupid enough not to make my external a recovery drive.
At the end of my rope, here...
Windows 8
Asus Z87-pro
Intel core i7
WD Black 2tb HDD
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 2x8gb RAM
Asus GTX 660Ti (I know it's old...)
Antec 750w power supply
Update: removing everything, including fans, except for one sick of ram, gives the 99 code. No BIOS.
Just read in my mb manual that Corsair 2x8 ram isn't listed in the compatible 1333MHz list. It worked totally fine even up to its list successful boot.
Plugged HDD in different slots, used different cords, I can hear it reading the disk but still no boot, no BIOS. A2 again.
I had removed the button battery for five mins and replaced that as well, no change.
Removing power cord but keeping HDD connected to SATA also yielded code A2.
Also last time I was in BIOS I disabled DirectKey & CSM. Fast Boot disabled. No change.
Update 2: gradually reinstalled all components. No change.
Reinstalling the video card without connecting power yields code 62. On board mb vga doesn't display anything on monitor, graphics card displays message to install power cords.
Connecting power yields no change. Still displays A2.
Disconnecting power to the cpu yields no change. A2.
Update 3: turning on with everything inside connected, I connected all my USB cables while it displayed A2, code then changed to 64. Nothing else happened though.
The boot device LED is lit every power-up when connected.
Update 4: I bought a new PSU & a new SSD. I hooked up all new power cables to the new PSU but it didn't seem to change anything (?) but I was too lazy to unhook it again so what happens next is with the new PSU.
I hooked up the new SSD and unhooked the old HDD and for some reason instead of doing nothing/going straight to UEFI BIOS, it actually properly booted from the Windows 8 cd?? So I reattached the HDD and tried to select "Refresh" but it said something like "The drive that Windows is installed on is locked, unlock it and try again." So I selected auto repair, told me it couldn't repair.
Researching locked drives at the moment...
Booting was a rarity. Last night I decided to get into BIOS and fiddle around. Both my HDD and external HD were present in EZ mode and advanced. They didn't appear to have any problems. And now, when I CAN get it to boot, it goes directly into BIOS and I can't get windows to boot. Then it goes back to black screen, not even a flashing cursor.
This is my first custom build. I back up fairly often but this was unexpected and have very important files on the hard drive I gotta retrieve. I've pretty much resigned to the idea of replacing parts, even though there never appeared to be anything wrong with any components when it DID boot up. Windows 8 is installed on the WD internal HDD. I was stupid enough not to make my external a recovery drive.
At the end of my rope, here...
Windows 8
Asus Z87-pro
Intel core i7
WD Black 2tb HDD
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 2x8gb RAM
Asus GTX 660Ti (I know it's old...)
Antec 750w power supply
Update: removing everything, including fans, except for one sick of ram, gives the 99 code. No BIOS.
Just read in my mb manual that Corsair 2x8 ram isn't listed in the compatible 1333MHz list. It worked totally fine even up to its list successful boot.
Plugged HDD in different slots, used different cords, I can hear it reading the disk but still no boot, no BIOS. A2 again.
I had removed the button battery for five mins and replaced that as well, no change.
Removing power cord but keeping HDD connected to SATA also yielded code A2.
Also last time I was in BIOS I disabled DirectKey & CSM. Fast Boot disabled. No change.
Update 2: gradually reinstalled all components. No change.
Reinstalling the video card without connecting power yields code 62. On board mb vga doesn't display anything on monitor, graphics card displays message to install power cords.
Connecting power yields no change. Still displays A2.
Disconnecting power to the cpu yields no change. A2.
Update 3: turning on with everything inside connected, I connected all my USB cables while it displayed A2, code then changed to 64. Nothing else happened though.
The boot device LED is lit every power-up when connected.
Update 4: I bought a new PSU & a new SSD. I hooked up all new power cables to the new PSU but it didn't seem to change anything (?) but I was too lazy to unhook it again so what happens next is with the new PSU.
I hooked up the new SSD and unhooked the old HDD and for some reason instead of doing nothing/going straight to UEFI BIOS, it actually properly booted from the Windows 8 cd?? So I reattached the HDD and tried to select "Refresh" but it said something like "The drive that Windows is installed on is locked, unlock it and try again." So I selected auto repair, told me it couldn't repair.
Researching locked drives at the moment...
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