Black screen with dash on startup

[PrototypeBayu8]

So one day i restarted my pc and on startup it was a black screen with a dash on the upper left corner, and after a while it would take me to a screen to choose a disk to boot from.

My question is what should i do to get my pc up and running ??

Fyi i have a primary disk and a secondary 1tb disk and i want the solution to make sure that the 1tb disk is not formatted to as it contains precious data and its not backed up.

Oh and my mobo is an msi

 

[Multipack]

Soundslike a failing HDD. Can you boot from it at all or are you constantly getting the error? Check to see if you can see the drive in your BIOS if you can access them first.

 

[PrototypeBayu8]

@multipack
Do you think the primary hdd is broken or the secondary ? (Windows is in my primary)

 

[Multipack]

Your boot drive if your PC is failing to boot.

 

[PrototypeBayu8]

Your boot drive if your PC is failing to boot.

Ah ok, ill check once im back from my vacation and ill report more on it...

Btw i have another question..
In my frantic attempt to get it back i disconnected the sata cable of my secondary drive (hdd) from the mobo, and tried to restart it with no avail, and i put it back, i just would like to know, is the data in my secondary drive (hdd) affected or no?

 

[Multipack]

No it should be just fine. If you were reading to/writing from it then the actual data being transferred at the time may have got corrupted but apart from that no.

 

[PrototypeBayu8]

@multipack oh ok, thx a lot!!

 

[PrototypeBayu8]

Ok from what i remember the boot drive is not broken, and if that is the case what would be the solution, should i reinstall windows ??

 

[Multipack]

The black screen upon boot most likely suggests your system is failing to read the disk with Windows on, aka the boot drive. An OS error would not likely produce that kind of problem. It is more likely a cabling issue or the disk itself, but if you can reinstall your OS it would rule that out. If you want to protect data on your secondary drive, disconnect it before reinstalling.

If you can reinstall Windows, it means that your system is able to read and use the boot disk anyway.

 

[PrototypeBayu8]

Update: yes i can see the drive from the bios so what should i do then ?

 

[Multipack]

What i the problem? Just a blank screen with a dash? You could try pressing F8 on boot to start advanced options and run a chkdsk using cmd in safe mode, but I doubt you'll get that far. It'd be easier if you run it from a USB with a Windows USB/DVD