Broke my PC while cleaning it...

[rocket4929]

Ok, as the title stated, I managed to break my PC while trying to clean my PC. All fans spin, expect the graphics card where it spins for a while then stops (probably because I have set the fans on auto in MSI Afterburner). It boots into BIOS but cannot boot into the OS, stating that I need to "Reboot and select proper Boot Device". Ezdebug VGA lights up a bit then disappears after BIOS. When I tried to fix it by Windows 10 installation media, I found out that my hard drive partitions are gone and it's just >1000 GB unallocated space.

How I cleaned it:
I tried to clean my PC because the case fans we're starting to get coated with dust. I first unplugged everything and transferred my PC on a plastic table where I will work on (I forgot to ground myself). We don't have carpets. I removed the case and started cleaning the fans using a cotton ball and a piece of cloth, but to clean the fan in front of the case, I had to remove the hard drive and graphics card, so I did just that. After cleaning the front fan, I inserted the graphics card and hard drive back.

Specs:
Intel G4560
1x8GB Kingston RAM
Seagate 1TB HDD
MSI H110M PRO-VH PLUS
MSI GTX1050ti 4GB

I'm sorry if I stated unnecessary details, It's just that I'm a rookie when it comes to PCs and I don't know how to properly diagnose PC when the hardware is in play. If you require more information, I would be glad to provide it.

 

[lordtristan28]

Hm, I'm not to sure what this could be. But if you're hard drive is saying that it has 1tb of unallocated space that means that there is nothing on the drive itself. Meaning somehow it got wiped. As you explained this couldnt of happened. The only issue i can think of is something when really wrong when you unplugged the drive, This happened to me on my ssd. I was cleaning my computer and had to take out my SSD, So i unplugged it and when i plugged it back in half of my games were gone and windows had to repair itself. Do you have more then one drive inside the computer? Or just that 1tb hard drive.

 

[rocket4929]

Do you have more then one drive inside the computer? Or just that 1tb hard drive.

This is the only hard drive that I have in my computer. The only other drive being the optical drive that I have.

 

[lordtristan28]

Do you have more then one drive inside the computer? Or just that 1tb hard drive.

This is the only hard drive that I have in my computer. The only other drive being the optical drive that I have.

A quick look online it doesnt seem this is a very big issue. I don't see anyone posting about this issue happening to them. hard drives don't just wipe themseleves when unplugged. Have you checked to make sure everything is connected?

 

[little_me]

Only random issue I could think of would be that IF bios battery (the round CR2032) was dead, unplugging computer would have caused bios to reset to defaults.

This could have caused SATA settings to reset, which could cause the described provided that the setting was RAID before and now AHCI (and drive was working as single drive raid0, unlikely)
or it was AHCI before and was now reset to RAID. (unlikely since as RAID it should still see disks as disks and default to non-raid usage)

It is unlikely but just something to check in BIOS settings though.

 

[rocket4929]

Ok, I took lordtristan28's advice and checked the cables' connection. I removed and reconnected the SATA cable on the hard drive and the motherboard and now I get a Windows 10 logo, but it's stuck there. I also checked on the installation media and for some reason, the partitions are back. I tried System Repair but to no avail, and I also tried chkdsk via console commands.

 

[lordtristan28]

Ok, I took lordtristan28's advice and checked the cables' connection. I removed and reconnected the SATA cable on the hard drive and the motherboard and now I get a Windows 10 logo, but it's stuck there. I also checked on the installation media and for some reason, the partitions are back. I tried System Repair but to no avail, and I also tried chkdsk via console commands.

Sorry for the long respond. I understand this is probably a boot loop issue.
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/139576-startup-repair-infinite-loop-recovery.html
Try looking through there.

 

[rocket4929]

Ok, after taking this PC to a technician and not being able to fix it. I tried a testing each parts of the PC (I didn't want to do this before in fear of breaking something.) And to my surprise, I found the culprit, and it's the hard drive. The PC booted into Windows 10 when I took the hard drive from my ancient hardware and inserted it on my current PC. It kinda makes sense because recently I have been hearing ticking sounds from my hard drive. Anyways, thanks to all that helped me.