Hard Drive Dead or Weird Software Glitch?

[MatrixBetaTester]

A few days ago I was doing some testing on my computer and I unplugged my secondary HDD from the power (I stupidly left the SATA cable plugged in). Ever since I've been unable to boot off of my SSD whenever the second drive is plugged in (stalls at ClassPNP.sys). I can boot when the HDD is unplugged and then I can plug in the SATA cable (I enabled hot-plugging in my BIOS) and the drive will (slowly) be recognized and seems to be accessible but again it takes a while for Windows to recognize it and sometimes ends up crashing Windows Explorer. Any idea what's going on? Did I somehow kill it or is it some weird software thing? I believe the paging file was (for some reason) on the HDD. Also, all folder like My Documents were on the secondary drive. The drive was working perfectly fine before this.

Specs:
-Intel i5-3570k @ stock
-Sapphire AMD Radeon 7850 @ 1050/1450MHz
-Asus P8Z77-V Motherboard
-8gb Mushkin RAM
-460w Cooler Master PSU
-120gb ADATA SSD (boot)
-1tb Seagate HDD (storage)
-Windows 7 Ultimate

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, MatrixBetaTester!

I'd suggest you to try using a different SATA cable with the HDD and even try a different port on the motherboard. If the problem is still present, you should also try using a different PC and see how the drive will behave there. It's possible that it's crashing the system because it's failing.
You can also attempt troubleshooting it externally via a SATA-to-USB cable (+ a power adapter) or a docking station.
Then you should be able to run your HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tool and check up on the health and SMART status of the drive. If that's not possible either, you can create a bootable USB drive with the DOS version of their utility and run the tests without booting Windows.

Hope this was helpful. Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[MatrixBetaTester]

Hey there, MatrixBetaTester!

I'd suggest you to try using a different SATA cable with the HDD and even try a different port on the motherboard. If the problem is still present, you should also try using a different PC and see how the drive will behave there. It's possible that it's crashing the system because it's failing.
You can also attempt troubleshooting it externally via a SATA-to-USB cable (+ a power adapter) or a docking station.
Then you should be able to run your HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tool and check up on the health and SMART status of the drive. If that's not possible either, you can create a bootable USB drive with the DOS version of their utility and run the tests without booting Windows.

Hope this was helpful. Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

Okay I will try it out thanks. What about the fact that it was literally working perfectly before I tried to boot without it plugged in though and then stopped working the second I plugged it back in after that? How is that possible? Wouldn't that suggest something software related?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there again, MatrixBetaTester!

Unfortunately, it seems like the issue is hardware-related with the HDD, rather than a software-related one. As to why you experience such issues when you have the HDD connected to the SATA port on the motherboard, I'd just say that it's a typical behavior of a failing drive. (Even if there is no OS on it)
When you boot the system, the SATA controller(s) tries to initialize all the drives attached to it. If one of the HDDs is bad, then it takes a while to boot (if it even boots) because the controller gives up. This basically blocks the initialization processes, the SATA controller stalls and eventually it prevents the system from booting.

If you don't encounter any issues when the HDD is unplugged and the PC performs flawlessly, then it's definitely not a software problem.

SuperSoph_WD