[SOLVED] Could a bad secondary storage drive cause PC failure to boot?

[olblindman]

My PC has given me boot up problems, which may, or may not be corrected. When I would attempt to restart my pc after a power failure, or very recent shut down, it was like the PSU was dead....nothing, except for lights on mobo. By unplugging all USBs and PSU and waiting a bit, she fires up again. I found a storage drive had many bad sectors and I replaced it.....since then , I have had no issues. Is it possible this drive was the problem? It contained nothing more than documents and other trivial matter, with no OS. Could it have been drawing off power somehow preventing the PC from starting, or am I just lucky that my PC is working OK for now, only to have a potential issue on a future startup ( I haven't pressed the issue by shutting down, and rebooting right away---pain in the butt to get her fired up again.)?

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, a bad drive can negatively influence the system starting up.

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

If you are in an area with many power failures my thought is that those power losses and abrupt system shutdowns likely corrupted the storage drive.

 

[geofelt]

I have seen a case where the mere presence of a corrupted HDD would cause boot failure.
So, yes, it can happen.