Question Stable PC won't post after swapping out an old unused drive for a new one

[cnnor]

Hi guys,

I have run into an issue with my personal rig and I've not been able to find out the cause. It's been running with no issues for about 2 years now without any issues. I needed to upgrade my storage so I swapped out an old 2TB drive for a new 12TB one. After installing and booting the fans spin for 0.5 seconds, everything lights up and then stops again, only the RAM & Motherboard lights remain on (unresponsive to further power requests). Also, no error code from the Motherboard, I cannot reach the BIOS at all. The 2TB drive was an unused data only drive and was unassigned in my UnRaid setup.

Video of the issue: https://streamable.com/u82otc

I have tried:

1. Removed the new drive
2. Removed all external peripherals
3. Removed all GPUs
4. Removed all drives
5. Checked PSU connections
6. Checked CPU FAN & Power connection
7. Checked CPU Watercooler connections
8. Swapped CPU Watercooler USB to Motherboard connection vs Hub
9. Removed All but 1 RAM stick
10. Reset CMOS via Battery Method & Built-in CMOS Clear button

My Build

• AMD Ryzen 9 3950X CPU
• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB NVME M.2 SSD
• Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4
• Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero AMD AM4 X570
• CORSAIR RM Series RM850 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
• NZXT Kraken X72 360mm liquid cooler
• Fractal Design Define 7 XL E-ATX Chassis
• RTX 2070 Super

The NZXT Chassis comes with some hubs for managing fan power, could this be related somehow?

Any help with this would be extremely appreciated, I am trying to resolve this for 2 days now and it's my only machine I can use for my work. I think I must have knocked something loose but I cannot find the issue no matter what I try..

Regards,
Connor

 

[Lafong]

Clarify.

Is all of this correct:

Boot drive is 970 Evo.

2 TB and 12 TB are both data ONLY drives.

You made no changes other than removing the data 2 TB and replacing it with data 12 TB

??

Lastly...can you boot with BOTH 2 TB and 12 TB DISCONNECTED?

 

[cnnor]

Clarify.

Is all of this correct:

Boot drive is 970 Evo.

2 TB and 12 TB are both data ONLY drives.

You made no changes other than removing the data 2 TB and replacing it with data 12 TB

??

Lastly...can you boot with BOTH 2 TB and 12 TB DISCONNECTED?

Thanks for your reply, Boot drive is usually my USB into UnRaid but I do have a copy of windows on the 970 evo also.

Yea 2TB & (new) 12TB hard drives are for media only, no OS.

Nope, I removed the SATA data & power cables & replaced the old drive with the new one. However, I am concerned while swapping the drives, I had to move some cables out of the way which I was worried might have knocked something loose. However, everything seems to be connected correctly with no issue.

Have you seen an issue cause for the machine to boot like this before? It's not something I have seen myself. The fans start for a split second, (CPU block logo shows for 0.2 seconds also) and lights remain on.. very frustrating..

 

[Lafong]

Nope, I removed the SATA data & power cables & replaced the old drive with the new one.

Have you seen an issue cause for the machine to boot like this before? It's not something I have seen myself. The fans start for a split second, (CPU block logo shows for 0.2 seconds also) and lights remain on.. very frustrating..

Still not quite clear...does your "Nope" above mean you CAN'T boot into Windows with ONLY the 970 Evo connected?

I have seen a boot attempt on a new machine just spin fans for a second or two and then stop without further progress....but that was 8 or 10 years ago and I cannot recall how I solved it other than to say it was not bad hardware.

 

[geofelt]

What happens if you install the new 10tb drive and do not remove the old 2tb drive?
I suspect that when you installed windows on the ssd, the 2tb drive was present and windows installed a boot loader on it.
The drive will always be needed to boot.
There is a procedure available to correct this situation if you need to remove the 2tb drive.

 

[cnnor]

Hey

Still not quite clear...does your "Nope" above mean you CAN'T boot into Windows with ONLY the 970 Evo connected?

I have seen a boot attempt on a new machine just spin fans for a second or two and then stop without further progress....but that was 8 or 10 years ago and I cannot recall how I solved it other than to say it was not bad hardware.

Hey, apologies for the slow reply, back home now.

My bad, "Nope" was in reply to had I made any other changes other than replacing the 2TB data hard drive with a fresh 12TB one, I did not. I cannot boot into any drive as I cannot reach the BIOS, everything just pauses after the fans spin for 0.5 seconds and the mobo/ram lights remain on.

 

[cnnor]

What happens if you install the new 10tb drive and do not remove the old 2tb drive?
I suspect that when you installed windows on the ssd, the 2tb drive was present and windows installed a boot loader on it.
The drive will always be needed to boot.
There is a procedure available to correct this situation if you need to remove the 2tb drive.

Hey thank you for the reply and apologies for the delay on my response.

The old 2TB drive was just a data drive and not part of my unraid configuration. I cannot reach the BIOS at all, the fans on my machine stop spinning after 0.5 seconds but the motherboard/RAM lights remain on. No error code on the motherboard also.

 

[cnnor]

Lastly...can you boot with BOTH 2 TB and 12 TB DISCONNECTED?

Just to be clear on this, yes I have tried with just both removed and all drives removed. Nothing has been able to get me to the BIOS, No error codes