Motherboard doesn't boot when HDD is connected

[Kevin Rickman]

My computer stopped booting yesterday and I tried various tests on it to see if the mother board went bad. The computer will turn on, fans spin and the lights will turn on but it doesn't boot, or does the single beep at startup as it usually does. I tried some tests to find the cause. I took all the ram out then booted but it didn't beep nor did it for the rest of parts except.... The Hard drive. I disconnected it, booted and it beeped and and started booting till it said "no hard drive detected". I then reconnected the hard drive and it went back to the same no booting state. With the hard drive unplugged though, I am able to access the BIOS. Any ideas that can fix this?

 

[scout_03]

try it with another hdd it if boot but ask for the missing os .

 

[gnice3d]

Bad drive or cable... Occam's razor.

 

[Kevin Rickman]

I have concluded it's possibly the cable, I unplugged the hard drive and booted into the BIOS then on reconnecting the hard drive, exit bios to restart and the computer boots fine.

It is however quite slow, especially trying to open anything even windows explorer and the start menu

 

[scout_03]

do a defrag and clean the temp and cookies files also check the process that are on with the system .

 

[Kevin Rickman]

I have done that @scout_03, if it is the cable bad it may not be transferring data as fast as it used to

 

[scout_03]

sometimes it will show the drive and system will detect it some other it wont it could also be the sata slot on the motherboard did you try the next one ,it will be usefull to have name and model of all the parts in the system .