PC Won't boot with 3 hard drives connected.

[Chahoo]

Hey guys,

So recently i was browsing through some Boxing Day deals and found an SSD pretty cheap on a popular store in my country (PB Tech). However i plugged in the new SSD using the power connection my disk drive used and tried 2 sata cables i had laying around. Note, my disk drive has been detached for a while and i can't remember why i detached it, however there was nothing wrong with it so there is no issue with the power being given to it.

I turn on the computer, and it freezes at the Gigabyte splash screen, this one to be precise: https://i.stack.imgur.com/gSuND.jpg

When i unplug the new SSD, it boots fine. I can plug in the SSD into where my current 'storage' hard drive is, and it will boot, and after going into disk management and giving it a drive letter, it now shows in windows.

I have tried googling this error, and trying everything i have come across. I was going to put this down as a power issue, however it will boot with the 2 original hard drives AND with the disk drive plugged in, so i don't think it would be power.

My only solution i can think of, would be to copy all my exsisting data from my current SSD ( OS, and my regular use programs and files) onto the new SSD and gain 100gb space, but i would much prefer to be able to use the new SSD fully.

Current Specs:

Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 2400 @ 3.10GHz
Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. P67A-UD3R (Socket 1155)
Graphics
SMBX2450 (1920x1080@60Hz)
1024MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series (Sapphire/PCPartner)
Storage
111GB KINGSTON SV300S37A120G ATA Device (SSD)
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EALX-009BA0 ATA Device (SATA)

NEW SSD In Question - SanDisk SSD Plus 240GB



Thanks in advance

 

[boosted1g]

Could have to do with motherboard storage controller.
The SSD should be plugged into one of the white SATA ports on the board.
Those ports should be set to AHCI (only way TRIM works).

Now are you wanting to copy your OS to the SSD, do a clean install of windows, or just use the SSD for storage?


FYI the reason the V300 was so cheap is because it has been on sale for cheap for the last 2 years. Kingston introduced this great bang for buck SSD in 2014 that got pretty good performance score, a real value. Then right before the holiday season in 2014 they changed the nram chips to cheaper asynchronous chips that performed significantly worse then the original ones. Kingston even went of their way to make it so that you could not tell the difference visually between the two chips and decided that legally they could sell it as the same drive.
Thus vendors have been struggling to sell inventory of these after the community exposed their little bait and switch.

 

[Paul NZ]

Disable the splash screen in the BIOS. So you can see what its doing

 

[Chahoo]

Could have to do with motherboard storage controller.
The SSD should be plugged into one of the white SATA ports on the board.
Those ports should be set to AHCI (only way TRIM works).

Now are you wanting to copy your OS to the SSD, do a clean install of windows, or just use the SSD for storage?


FYI the reason the V300 was so cheap is because it has been on sale for cheap for the last 2 years. Kingston introduced this great bang for buck SSD in 2014 that got pretty good performance score, a real value. Then right before the holiday season in 2014 they changed the nram chips to cheaper asynchronous chips that performed significantly worse then the original ones. Kingston even went of their way to make it so that you could not tell the difference visually between the two chips and decided that legally they could sell it as the same drive.
Thus vendors have been struggling to sell inventory of these after the community exposed their little bait and switch.

I just want it for storage, i have tried both AHCI and IDE

 

[Chahoo]

Disable the splash screen in the BIOS. So you can see what its doing

Okay i did this and when all 3 are attached it seems to take a while on bios memory frequency, but then gets stuck on "detecting ide drives"


After some further investigation i have realized that regardless of what drive is plugged into the white colored port will be detected while nothing on the black ports are detected (tried with just the boot drive and one in the black port). Is there another way that i can plug in my "non ssd harddrive" ?

 

[Chahoo]

Could have to do with motherboard storage controller.
The SSD should be plugged into one of the white SATA ports on the board.
Those ports should be set to AHCI (only way TRIM works).

Now are you wanting to copy your OS to the SSD, do a clean install of windows, or just use the SSD for storage?


FYI the reason the V300 was so cheap is because it has been on sale for cheap for the last 2 years. Kingston introduced this great bang for buck SSD in 2014 that got pretty good performance score, a real value. Then right before the holiday season in 2014 they changed the nram chips to cheaper asynchronous chips that performed significantly worse then the original ones. Kingston even went of their way to make it so that you could not tell the difference visually between the two chips and decided that legally they could sell it as the same drive.
Thus vendors have been struggling to sell inventory of these after the community exposed their little bait and switch.

After some further investigation i have realized that regardless of what drive is plugged into the white colored port will be detected while nothing on the black ports are detected (tried with just the boot drive and one in the black port). Is there another way that i can plug in my "non ssd harddrive" ?

I have 2 white ports and 2 black ones under, and then 2 more black ones labeled SATA 2

 

[Paul NZ]

If it freezes / hangs on the post screen, its having probs reading one of the hdds

Its not an M.2 ssd is it. Because an M.2 will disable some sata ports

 

[Chahoo]

If it freezes / hangs on the post screen, its having probs reading one of the hdds

Its not an M.2 ssd is it. Because an M.2 will disable some sata ports

Doesn't say anywhere that it is an M,2. What would be a dead give away?

 

[Paul NZ]

M.2 uses an M.2 slot its on the mobo you dont connect it with a power/data cable

 

[Chahoo]

M.2 uses an M.2 slot its on the mobo you dont connect it with a power/data cable

Oh, no its connected with power and a sata cable. The SSD works fine, when its just the SSD and boot drive, the problem happens when all 3 are plugged in
SSD Boot Drive
SSD "Storage" drive
HDD "Storage" drive

All Connected with power and sata.
2x white sata sockets
2x black sata sockets
2x black sata sockets (named sata 2)
Seems to only pick up the hard drives when they are plugged into the white colored sockets. However i only have 2 white sockets and the black sockets don't seem to be picking up any activity of hard drives, and makes the BIOS hang at detecting IDE drives.

 

[Paul NZ]

If you can get into the BIOS what BIOS is on it now?? If it's F7A I would update it this is a beta BIOS

Is the ssd that you want to boot from the bootdisk in the BIOS?

Does the BIOS let you disable SATA ports?? Maybe theyre disabled in the BIOS?

 

[Chahoo]

If you can get into the BIOS what BIOS is on it now?? If it's F7A I would update it this is a beta BIOS

Is the ssd that you want to boot from the bootdisk in the BIOS?

Does the BIOS let you disable SATA ports?? Maybe theyre disabled in the BIOS?

The BIOS version is F3 according to the CMD using "wmic bios get smbiosbiosversion"
The boot disk is the SSD as it will boot to Win10 normally with just 2 hard drives connected
I cannot enable/disable sata ports in the bios

 

[Paul NZ]

I take it you're in NZ? You in Auckland or somewhere else?

 

[Chahoo]

I take it you're in NZ? You in Auckland or somewhere else?

yeah im in Auckland

 

[veldrane2]

If I understand this correctly, you have 3 drives, 1 of them brand new, when you plug it into one of the slots your PC hangs on drive recognition ?

Unplug all drives, start up computer and go into BIOS. Reset everything to factory defaults if your computer doesn't have options to reset drives. Save and power down.

Unplug all drives. Take the known good drive and plug into a known good slot. Boot up to windows to make sure it works. Power down.

Plug the new drive into a known good slot, boot into windows, and see if its there at all. It may be tehre but be not accessible or alike. Test it by copying some files into it, liek a short video, then play that video from it to make sure it works well. If it doesn't work, then format it into a bootable drive. Then power down completely, wait like 30 secs, power back up. Repeat the file test.

Power down. Unplug all drives, plug your main working drive into a slot you think may be bad, if it works, great, if not, then you may have a bad slot. Test each slot individually like this. If all slots are good, plug in your main drive only, then your new drive and boot up, do a file test. Then power down again and plug in your last drive, power up and do a file test.

You may need to reset BIOS inbetween all the drive swapping. Unfortunately if your BIOS doesn't give you any options for drives, which one make bootable, which drive ports to enable / disable etc. it may come down to unplugging all of them and do a factory defaults reset each time.

 

[Paul NZ]

Hmm I'm in Taupo. If you were round here, I could have checked it out

The manual doesnt tell you a lot does it lol

Whats the PSU in this?

 

[Chahoo]

If I understand this correctly, you have 3 drives, 1 of them brand new, when you plug it into one of the slots your PC hangs on drive recognition ?

Unplug all drives, start up computer and go into BIOS. Reset everything to factory defaults if your computer doesn't have options to reset drives. Save and power down.

Unplug all drives. Take the known good drive and plug into a known good slot. Boot up to windows to make sure it works. Power down.

Plug the new drive into a known good slot, boot into windows, and see if its there at all. It may be tehre but be not accessible or alike. Test it by copying some files into it, liek a short video, then play that video from it to make sure it works well. If it doesn't work, then format it into a bootable drive. Then power down completely, wait like 30 secs, power back up. Repeat the file test.

Power down. Unplug all drives, plug your main working drive into a slot you think may be bad, if it works, great, if not, then you may have a bad slot. Test each slot individually like this. If all slots are good, plug in your main drive only, then your new drive and boot up, do a file test. Then power down again and plug in your last drive, power up and do a file test.

You may need to reset BIOS inbetween all the drive swapping. Unfortunately if your BIOS doesn't give you any options for drives, which one make bootable, which drive ports to enable / disable etc. it may come down to unplugging all of them and do a factory defaults reset each time.

yeah you're right that is the problem, however i have tried your steps and it doesn't change anything. I think my mobo just doesn't support 3 hard drives.

 

[Chahoo]

Hmm I'm in Taupo. If you were round here, I could have checked it out

The manual doesnt tell you a lot does it lol

Whats the PSU in this?

GW660SEL is the only info i can see on it without taking it out, ill have a better look tomorrow

 

[Paul NZ]

This]http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1627090/sata-ports-detecting.html]This sounds similar to your prob. [/url]

And it 's nearly the same mobo (except for the R at the end)

It MAY have been a fault with this model

 

[Chahoo]

This]http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1627090/sata-ports-detecting.html]This sounds similar to your prob. [/url]

And it 's nearly the same mobo (except for the R at the end)

It MAY have been a fault with this model

Cheers for the help mate, been wanting to upgrade my CPU recently, might as well get a new mobo too.

 

[Paul NZ]

Sweet no probs