Question Pc won’t boot with HDD plugged in, only SSD; Infinite windows loop

[Elykshur]

So yesterday I had to reinstall windows. At first, everytime I tried to install, it would get stuck at repair is starting. I read online to leave my SSD and remove my HDD, and sure enough, it worked.

Which brings me to today. The new windows is installed on the SSD and it’s running great. Now when I plugged my HDD, it’s recognized in bios but when I start up on my SSD, I just see my motherboard logo and the infinite spinning dots until I unplug my HDD again.

Does this sound like my HDD has gone bad? Or a wire issue? I reinstalled windows to begin with because after an update my pc stopped working and I’m wondering if the update made a partition on both my HDD and SSD.

 

[Aeacus]

I’m wondering if the update made a partition on both my HDD and SSD.

If you have boot manager on HDD, it is possible that once you plug in your HDD, OS tries to load the old boot manager from HDD, but since it's old (corrupt), OS itself won't load.

This shouldn't be an issue, since when hooking up multiple drives with OSes on them, from BIOS, you can select the boot order. Here, i'd remove all and any other drives from the boot order, that have OS on them, except the SSD with current/main OS. This way, the SSD where OS is located, loads up problem free, while you can still access other drives within PC.

Another option is trying with different SATA port on MoBo. Sometimes, SATA ports are capricious and doesn't want to work at all times. (In my years, i've had to switch SATA ports around to get all my SATA drives to show up.)

If all above fails, and if you want to get your HDD working, one option is to format it, so that the boot loader on it is also deleted. This would wipe all data on HDD but gives you HDD that you can use again.

Dying HDD sings are very slow read/write times on HDD. Especially HDD defragmentation, which takes far longer time to complete than usual.

 

[Elykshur]

If you have boot manager on HDD, it is possible that once you plug in your HDD, OS tries to load the old boot manager from HDD, but since it's old (corrupt), OS itself won't load.

This shouldn't be an issue, since when hooking up multiple drives with OSes on them, from BIOS, you can select the boot order. Here, i'd remove all and any other drives from the boot order, that have OS on them, except the SSD with current/main OS. This way, the SSD where OS is located, loads up problem free, while you can still access other drives within PC.

Another option is trying with different SATA port on MoBo. Sometimes, SATA ports are capricious and doesn't want to work at all times. (In my years, i've had to switch SATA ports around to get all my SATA drives to show up.)

If all above fails, and if you want to get your HDD working, one option is to format it, so that the boot loader on it is also deleted. This would wipe all data on HDD but gives you HDD that you can use again.

Dying HDD sings are very slow read/write times on HDD. Especially HDD defragmentation, which takes far longer time to complete than usual.

Disabled it completely in bios aswell as tried different ports and cables. No luck, I was going to format the drive within windows recovery tool but it gets stuck at the setup screen

 

[Aeacus]

I was going to format the drive within windows recovery tool but it gets stuck at the setup screen

To format the drive, you have few other options:
#1 Bring the HDD to PC repair shop and pay them a bit to format the drive for you.
#2 Create bootable GNU/Linux distro on USB thumb drive, unhook SSD with OS, keeping only HDD hooked; boot into GNU/Linux and format the HDD via GNU/Linux.

#1 Is fast but costs a bit.
#2 Is free but requires you to set up bootable GNU/Linux distro on USB thumb drive (that's the easy part), while also requiring a bit of know-how of your selected GNU/Linux distro, so you can navigate in it and format the HDD.

I have bootable Linux Mint on my USB thumb drive, just for redundancy if my OS drive should die and i need to access my PC. I can either load entire Mint into my RAM, thus making PC bootable (booting into Mint) or format and install Mint to any drives i so choose. <- For the latter, there is option you can select, once POST is complete and prior the distro loading up.

So, which of the two you'd like to do?
If GNU/Linux distro, i can link guides on how to make bootable GNU/Linux distro on USB thumb drive.

 

[Teknoman2]

There is an easier way to format the HDD. Unplug the SSD and leave only the HHD plugged, insert the USB stick you used for installing windows, start the process of installing windows on the HDD, on the screen that you choose on which disk you want to install it, use the options there to delete all partitions on the HDD which will delete all data on it and you can also format it. Then you simply exit the installer and plug the SSD back in.
Then right click on start, choose disk management and initialize / create a new partition on the HDD to activate and use it.
If this is the method you used when you said you used the windows recovery tool, you can also try unplugging the SATA cable of the HDD, get into windows and the plug it in. If windows sees it when you do, then you follow this video to clean it from all data

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxm928PZdNI