Second Hard Drive Causing Boot Problem

[HungryTuna]

Any and all help is appreciated with this.

The problem I am running into is that whenever I try to boot, before being able to ever enter the BIOS or get any glimpse of the windows loading screen, it freezes on the Gigabyte loading page. However, if I unplug the secondary HD, everything loads perfectly and I can re-plug it in after windows has started and use it like I would any other internal drive. Ive run diagnostic software on the secondary drive and all appears normal with it. It gets quite annoying having to open the case and unplug/plug in it whenever I restart the computer. Other guides didn't help as they often could at least get to the windows loading screen or BIOS to reassign the boot order. Any suggestions?

All of this isrunning a custom built PC. Specs are as below.

-OS: Windows 10
-Processor: i5 2500k
-Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77 UD5H
-RAM 16gb Corsair
-Primary Drive: 1tb Sansdisk SSD
-Secondary (Problematic) Drive: 4tb Western Digital Red

 

[Paperdoc]

I would look in BIOS Setup for exactly how your boot priority is set. It SHOULD be set to use the SSD as the first boot device (unless, like me, you want it to try the optical drive first) and then NO other device. When you set this, be sure to SAVE and EXIT to save the setting.

My suspicion is that with no HDD connected your system boots from the SSD easily with no confusion. But that HDD is 4 TB, and I bet it is Partitioned using the GPT system. Unless you have configured your BIOS to boot using UEFI Support (which is NOT needed for a smaller boot device partition in the MBR system), IF the system tries to boot from that HDD it will hang because the BIOS does not understand how to access it.

You are having difficulty getting into BIOS Setup. Most systems tell you to push the "Del" key (sometimes it's something else) during the POST process. I do it differently, because I find you can never tell when the POST process will get around to looking for a key press. Right after pushing the On / Off button I HOLD DOWN the "Del" key until the opening screen of BIOS Setup appears.

 

[HungryTuna]

I would look in BIOS Setup for exactly how your boot priority is set. It SHOULD be set to use the SSD as the first boot device (unless, like me, you want it to try the optical drive first) and then NO other device. When you set this, be sure to SAVE and EXIT to save the setting.

My suspicion is that with no HDD connected your system boots from the SSD easily with no confusion. But that HDD is 4 TB, and I bet it is Partitioned using the GPT system. Unless you have configured your BIOS to boot using UEFI Support (which is NOT needed for a smaller boot device partition in the MBR system), IF the system tries to boot from that HDD it will hang because the BIOS does not understand how to access it.

You are having difficulty getting into BIOS Setup. Most systems tell you to push the "Del" key (sometimes it's something else) during the POST process. I do it differently, because I find you can never tell when the POST process will get around to looking for a key press. Right after pushing the On / Off button I HOLD DOWN the "Del" key until the opening screen of BIOS Setup appears.

First and foremost thank you for the reply. I thought it was that problem but I havent been able to test that theory because I cant even open (even with holding the key which is what I always do anyways lol) the BIOS with the secondary drive plugged in which is super weird and something I've never heard of. What I'll try though is opening the BIOS without the hard drive plugged in and then plug it in once the BIOS is open and (hopefully) it will update and I can see the boot priority/order (I hadnt thought of that yet so let me test that)

UPDATE: Opened the BIOS without it plugged in and then plugged it in and looked at the boot order and the only thing there was the Windows Boot Manager as first priority and then the nothing else. Just tried with confirmed just the windows boot manager, then windows boot manager as first and ssd as second, ssd as first and windows boot manager as second, and then just ssd and all failed. Do you think it can be something misconfigured with the windows boot manager?

 

[Paperdoc]

I have not seen a system that lists "Windows Boot Manager" as the boot device. I am accustomed to seeing physical devices listed. Do you know where that Boot Manager thing is?

You do not report having tried setting it to use the SSD first and NOTHING else. In fact, I would be interested to know this. You say the machine will boot cleanly and will allow you into BIOS Setup when only the SSD is connected. Well, in BIOS Setup with that configuration, what does it say about the boot sequence? Is the SSD the ONLY device listed? Or, does it have Windows Boot Manager in the list, and if yes, in what position?

I'm wondering this: If you install only the SSD and go into BIOS Setup and set that SSD as the ONLY boot device, then SAVE and EXIT, will it still boot cleanly? Test a couple times to be sure. If that works, then re-connect the HDD and see if it boots OK now.