Harddrive disables my PC from starting

[emilijan]

Hello and thank you for reading!

Problem:
My problem is that whenever my 3rd HDD is connected to the PC, my PC is stuck in an endless loop, just loading. I see the screen with "Press del for BIOS" etc, and then I get the windows loading and that's where it's stuck. If I remove the faulty HDD, the PC will boot up normally and I'll get through to my login screen and everything's fine.

PC specs (sorry if I missed anything important!):
OS: Windows 8,1 Enterprise x64

Motherboard: MSI Z97 GAMING 5

CPU: intel i7-4790K @ 4.00 GHz (8 CPUs)

Memory: 32 GB RAM (4x 8gb of Corsair Vengeance 1866 MHz)

Video Card: Nvidia Geforce GTX 980

Storage: 1 SSD hard drive and 2x Seagate BarraCuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache

PSU: XFX ProSeries 850W

Some history of how it happened and what I've done so far:

This happened 28/10-2017 when I was trying to play a game called League of Legends. I couldn't login properly (Worth to note that League of Legends is NOT installed on the faulty HDD) and I thought "Hey, maybe a restart would help". So I restarted my PC normally but it encountered the problem I mentioned above. It was stuck on the windows loading screen, endlessly just spinning around. I resetted my BIOS settings, thinking that maybe I screwed up some boot order which didn't make sense considering it has worked fine for a year or so and suddenly it dropped dead.
It didn't work, so I opened up my PC and started checking if something had happened inside, maybe a Cable had fallen out in some magical way. I open it up and see nothing wrong except a little dust. I checked that every cable was in place and tried again to start the PC. This time, it started "automatic repair" and I got to a black screen. I repeated to restart my PC hoping something would change, but alas, nothing did. I waited a really long time when it was stuck on loading windows, and magically, I came to the login screen. I tried to login, but it got stuck somehow and the cursor turned into a spinning circle and I was stuck like that. I was able to move my mouse around, but not much more than that. Same with the automatic repair. I thought, since I got so far with the login screen, maybe I'd find myself some luck in automatic repair. I waited a long time with the automatic repair and all that happened was that my mouse appeared. Nothing else.
At this Point I started to take out my harddrives and leaving only my SSD harddrive which has OS installed. I booted the PC and it worked. I plugged in my 2nd HDD which is a normal SATA and it worked as well. I tried the 3rd one and it got stuck again. In my mind, I was thinking that it was either wrong with the 3rd hard drive, the cables, or maybe even the PSU not giving enough power. I once again unplugged everything, plugged in my SSD and now I plugged in only the faulty HDD. I powered on, and nothing, still stuck spinning. I decided that it was nothing wrong with my PSU then. I closed PC and now I changed the cables and got the same result. So nothing wrong with PSU, nothing wrong with cables. I turned it all off and turned it back on again, but this time I had my ear on the faulty HDD and I hear it starting up.
At this point, I have no idea what can be wrong. I plug them all in again, I open PC and enter BIOS to see if the HDDs are even visible in there, and, they all are.
I tried to unplug the faulty HDD, start the PC, get into my normal desktop and then plug the faulty harddrive back in and check disk management if it's in there, and I couldn't find it.

TL;DR I can't open my PC if my (suspected) faulty HDD is connected, I have tried to see if it's the PSU maybe not giving enough power, I have tried the cables, I listened and heard the faulty HDD start up and I've checked bios as well as resetted it.

I'm not a pro in PC lingo and what to do, but I'm not especially bad either. I would appreciate if the answers are for beginners, but I Think I could handle some more advanced answers as well.

Thank you in advance!

 

[DRagor]

plugged in my SSD and now I plugged in only the faulty HDD. I powered on, and nothing, still stuck spinning

Well, it sounds as faulty HDD indeed. Yes, the drive that has failed can prevent Windows from starting.
But to be sure, you have to exclude all other possible causes. Those are:
> faulty SATA data cable - make sure you connect the drive with same cable that works with other HDD
> faulty power cable - while PSU can be ok, single SATA plug may be not, so make sure you try at least 2 different plugs
> and finally, faulty SATA port on motherboard - make sure you connect the suspected drive to the SATA port that works with other HDD.
If after all the above tests you still have same results, I'd say the drive is goner.

 

[emilijan]

plugged in my SSD and now I plugged in only the faulty HDD. I powered on, and nothing, still stuck spinning

Well, it sounds as faulty HDD indeed. Yes, the drive that has failed can prevent Windows from starting.
But to be sure, you have to exclude all other possible causes. Those are:
> faulty SATA data cable - make sure you connect the drive with same cable that works with other HDD
> faulty power cable - while PSU can be ok, single SATA plug may be not, so make sure you try at least 2 different plugs
> and finally, faulty SATA port on motherboard - make sure you connect the suspected drive to the SATA port that works with other HDD.
If after all the above tests you still have same results, I'd say the drive is goner.

Thanks for the fast reply! As I said before, one of the hard drives still work, and all I did was simply take the cables from the working HDD and put it on the faulty one. Still didn't work. So your 3 > suggestions are covered, still not working. I'm gonna let this be for a while longer until someone else can confirm that the drive is a goner, I really wish it wasn't gone and that there could be some way I could still fix it. Poor life of a student, I can't afford another HDD haha.. Hopefully there's still something to be done.

Thanks once again DRagor, I (even though it sounds rude) hope you're wrong and there's still yet something to be done!

 

[DRagor]

If you have access to another machine, you can try connecting that HDD to it and see what happens. If it causes similar problems there, not much hope left.
It is a bit strange though, that BIOS can see it just fine. If you can get bootable Linux CD (or USB), I would try to run it with the faulty HDD connected - if it works, you could least try to copy the files from it.

 

[ArtPog]

As DRagor has pointed out it does sound like a defective drive. Two other things to try...
1. Connect the problem drive as a USB external HDD. This assumes you have a USB external enclosure or one of those SATA-To-USB cable adapters.

2. A. First, access the BIOS and change the SATA port/connector that you're going to connect the problem HDD to - see B. below (probably in the "Integrated Peripherals" section). Ensure that "Hot Plug" is ENABLED.
B. Boot the system with ONLY the boot drive connected...no other drives; then connect the problem HDD to the SATA port which you Enabled to "Hot Plug" in the BIOS.

Test the health of the drive with Seagate's SeaTools to see if that diagnostic program detects the drive and reports on its health. You can also use the HDSentinel program for this test.