Question Fried hard drives: can anyone give me an idea what’s wrong?

[shamemaker]

I know this is long but I want to be thorough and I’ve looked everywhere and have not found anything definitive for my problem. So here it is.

I have a gaming computer that I built years ago and have been swapping parts and upgrading as needed along the way. At the point in time of my issue I had an MSI z170a motherboard, an EVGA 1300 W psu, i7-6700k cpu, 2x Corsair RAM 8GB each, and two HDDs, a 500GB and a 1TB. All of those components had been occupying my computer for a year and a half with no issues.

About a month ago, my computer froze while I was surfing the internet. I was reading some articles when it tried to redirect my page to some spam websites and everything crashed. No big deal, I just manually shut down my computer by holding the power button and turned it back on. When I turned it back on, it fired up like normal for 3 seconds. Then it all shut off completely. Then it fired itself up again except it only took me to the bios. No matter what I did it wouldn’t recognize my main 500GB HDD. I thought maybe my HDD with my Windows 10 OS on it had crashed. So I took it to another computer and tested it and sure enough that computer wouldn’t recognize it. So I ordered a new SSD. When that arrived I hooked it up, installed windows 10 on it, and everything worked fine. I got windows reloaded and there weren’t any issues. After one day of using my computer I shut it down. I decided to hook back up my 2nd HDD. When I plugged it in and turned on my computer, it did the same thing it did the first time. It turned on for 3 seconds, shut off, and then turned back on and went straight to bios. My new SSD was no longer recognizable. I decide it might be my psu. I send in my psu to EVGA. They inform me that there was nothing wrong with my psu. And there’s no way I used the wrong cables because the only psu I’ve owned has been an EVGA 1300W. So now I’m left with all of my original parts and a brand new SSD. So I hook it all up, install windows 10 again, and it works. At this point I didn’t hook up either of my 2 old HDDs, just the new SSD with Windows 10 freshly installed on it. It works for 3 days. I shut it down at night, turn it on during the day, and so on. Well, a couple days ago I go to turn it on, without having done anything new to it, and it does the thing where it boots up for 3 seconds, shuts off and turns back on and goes straight to BIOS. It fried this SSD as well.

What could be my problem here? Could it be faulty SATA data ports on my motherboard? Even though I’m using the correct PSU cables could it be a faulty SATA power cable? I’m at a loss and so is my friend who initially got me into building computers several years ago. Luckily, my MSi z170A motherboard was still under warranty so I’m sending that in now. But if that checks out with no issues, then I won’t have any idea what could be wrong. Could my ATX tower cables be causing something to fry? Im just looking for any kind of answers here. Thanks.

 

[cin19]

About a month ago, my computer froze while I was surfing the internet. I was reading some articles when it tried to redirect my page to some spam websites and everything crashed.

Your PC got the virus. You have to do the clean install the window 10, even the 2nd HDD, you need to clear it up too.

So you should try to get the win10 into the bootable USB to do the clean reinstall the win10.

 

[shamemaker]

Your PC got the virus. You have to do the clean install the window 10, even the 2nd HDD, you need to clear it up too.

So you should try to get the win10 into the bootable USB to do the clean reinstall the win10.

I disconnected both of my HDDs and used a new SSD. And this still happened.

 

[Third-Eye]

I know this is long but I want to be thorough and I’ve looked everywhere and have not found anything definitive for my problem. So here it is.

I have a gaming computer that I built years ago and have been swapping parts and upgrading as needed along the way. At the point in time of my issue I had an MSI z170a motherboard, an EVGA 1300 W psu, i7-6700k cpu, 2x Corsair RAM 8GB each, and two HDDs, a 500GB and a 1TB. All of those components had been occupying my computer for a year and a half with no issues.

About a month ago, my computer froze while I was surfing the internet. I was reading some articles when it tried to redirect my page to some spam websites and everything crashed. No big deal, I just manually shut down my computer by holding the power button and turned it back on. When I turned it back on, it fired up like normal for 3 seconds. Then it all shut off completely. Then it fired itself up again except it only took me to the bios. No matter what I did it wouldn’t recognize my main 500GB HDD. I thought maybe my HDD with my Windows 10 OS on it had crashed. So I took it to another computer and tested it and sure enough that computer wouldn’t recognize it. So I ordered a new SSD. When that arrived I hooked it up, installed windows 10 on it, and everything worked fine. I got windows reloaded and there weren’t any issues. After one day of using my computer I shut it down. I decided to hook back up my 2nd HDD. When I plugged it in and turned on my computer, it did the same thing it did the first time. It turned on for 3 seconds, shut off, and then turned back on and went straight to bios. My new SSD was no longer recognizable. I decide it might be my psu. I send in my psu to EVGA. They inform me that there was nothing wrong with my psu. And there’s no way I used the wrong cables because the only psu I’ve owned has been an EVGA 1300W. So now I’m left with all of my original parts and a brand new SSD. So I hook it all up, install windows 10 again, and it works. At this point I didn’t hook up either of my 2 old HDDs, just the new SSD with Windows 10 freshly installed on it. It works for 3 days. I shut it down at night, turn it on during the day, and so on. Well, a couple days ago I go to turn it on, without having done anything new to it, and it does the thing where it boots up for 3 seconds, shuts off and turns back on and goes straight to BIOS. It fried this SSD as well.

What could be my problem here? Could it be faulty SATA data ports on my motherboard? Even though I’m using the correct PSU cables could it be a faulty SATA power cable? I’m at a loss and so is my friend who initially got me into building computers several years ago. Luckily, my MSi z170A motherboard was still under warranty so I’m sending that in now. But if that checks out with no issues, then I won’t have any idea what could be wrong. Could my ATX tower cables be causing something to fry? Im just looking for any kind of answers here. Thanks.

Replace the SATA data cable and change the SATA port you are using. Try each drive one at a time to make sure they are recognized. If they are recognized, leave the other drives unplugged and try booting into Windows with either the original OS drive or the SSD. If none of that works and you have access to another computer, you could try using a USB 3.0 thumb drive to install a live Linux image like Ubuntu or Linux Mint to see if the system will even boot anymore.

 

[shamemaker]

When I get a fresh SSD, I can plug it in and do a clean install of Windows 10. But after I shut it down and start it back up, it still does this same thing. Everything appears to be working fine but for some reason it just keeps frying my SSDs. I've swapped cables, I RMAd my motherboard and they sent it back. I don't know what the issue is here. I'm getting desperate here because if I can't resolve this issue i will eventually just buy a whole brand new computer.