Win7 machine has STOP blue screen on boot, problems with HDD and SSD

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actkk

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I am working on a machine for a friend who told me that their machine stopped booting recently. I have been diagnosing it and have noticed the following issues:

1. The SSD is not detected across multiple machines, even in BIOS (model ADATA 500 Series S596 Turbo 32GB)

2. A clone drive of the original HDD has the same STOP blue screen, and does not respond to System Repair (just as with the original HDD).

I just ran chkdsk /f on the original HDD (using Windows Vista on an old drive in the same computer) and Windows claimed to fix errors on the drive. On attempting to boot into safe mode this original HDD still gave the STOP blue screen.

The friend for whom I am working on this computer does not fully remember what setup was used for these drives, but what I am starting to believe is that the SSD contained some essential part of the boot code, and that with its failure the OS is attempting to boot without having some essential part, which causes the blue screen. Am I in the ballpark on this theory, or are there other angles I should consider?

I seem to be able to back up all important files from the original HDD, so if need be I think I can justify to this friend a replacement SSD and a new installation of Windows. I'd like to avoid any new hardware purchases if possible however.

One more note in case it's relevant: This computer also has an mSATA drive on the motherboard. I am not sure how this factors into things though.

Thanks for any and all help.
 
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actkk

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My apologies for not mentioning it junkeymonkey, I have run startup repair on the original HDD and on the clone HDD multiple times each to no noticeable effect.

I also tried booting from the mSATA drive, but this didn't appear to have any boot info on it.

 
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actkk

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I realized upon checking your links again that I did not get a prompt to use the command line when doing startup repair from a Windows 7 install disk. Is there a particular option that needs to be selected, or some other means to trigger the option which would not be immediately obvious?
 
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junkeymonkey

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1. The SSD is not detected across multiple machines, even in BIOS (model ADATA 500 Series S596 Turbo 32GB)

maybe just a bad drive or the drive has a firmware issue ??

thing about clone is any issues on the old drive can be cloned over to the new so the old drive may of got corrupted so bad it cant boot anymore and you just transferred that over to the new drive ??

thing to do if you get the new drive recognized is just do a fresh install of windows to insure that's now 100% good and hook up the old drive if toy can still access all the files on it as a storage drive and grab what files you want or need from it as you would a storage drive [that's how I do it ]

also be sure all his sata cables are good I just had to replace one last week for my optical drive that just disappeared on me and that fixed that
 
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actkk

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The drive is showing up normally, so I don't think that it is a problem with the cables.

I'm convinced the SSD is bad, but I would like a way to make it 100% certain.

I've had situations where a clone of a bad disk was able to fix the issues itself. This occurred in cases where the bad disk had hardware flaws that prevented repair software from fixing it, and after being copied to a new disk, the new disk was able to be repaired.

I am seeing that this is not the case with this new disk, which has convinced me that the original HDD from which the clone was made is not actually bad. This increases my evidence that the SSD is the culprit, and that a new install will be necessary as you suggested. I can take the important data off of the drive, do a clean install, and then copy important data back onto the drive. Not sure how an SSD would factor back into this, or how the mSATA drive would factor into this either. Any advice on how these two operate in this plan would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I did end up getting a command prompt on another repair run. It gave an X:\Source as the prompt location, and I ran fixmbr and fixboot as instructed in the link provided. No change was observed, the bluescreen still occurred at the same point as before.
 
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actkk

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No chance of an RMA now, the drive is 4 years old! I guess it was inevitable, just a bummer anyway.

I'll be in touch with the friend tomorrow about what course of action to take. Thanks for the replies!
 
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actkk

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Coming back to this today, I find it a bit strange.

Is it really possible for an OS to not be able to boot off of the HDD because of the SSD not being present? I'm not fully aware of the setup used in this computer because it was built by someone else (and also done 4 years ago now, and they don't remember the setup either). What kind of configuration would let you install an OS across both the SSD and the HDD to the point that if one failed, that the other wouldn't work? I'm only used to seeing SSD installs where the HDD is used exclusively for storage, but this HDD that I pulled from the machine has typical Windows system files like you'd see in an installation (Documents and Settings, Windows folders in root for example).

I ask only because I don't want to give misinformation to my friend and end up convincing them to fix their machine one way, only for it to still be broken or go wrong in another way down the road.
 
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junkeymonkey

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like I said I would never clone myself you said that cloning repaired things ??? don't see how cause it just clones -- I would all ways do a clean fresh install of the os that way your insured you got a working clean copy of that then hook the old drive up as like a storage and get the files you need as needed

all I can say is what ever was wrong from the drive you cloned from carried over to the new drive

then like I showed that adata drive don't look to have a good track record and reviewed low so??..........


so its down to get the windows retail dvd disk and do a clean fresh install if the drive is not seen when installed in 2 or 3 computers you tried it in call it bad ??

http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows?sidebar_promotions_icons=testingoff&utm_expid=66866090-67.e9PWeE2DSnKObFD7vNEoqg.1&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D4%26cad%3Drja%26uact%3D8%26ved%3D0ahUKEwiuqLfk9anJAhUD2D4KHbSyCDYQFgg1MAM%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flifehacker.com%252F5837543%252Fhow-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows%26usg%3DAFQjCNFruweQteKafbWf0fTaZaCcoEp1uw%26sig2%3Dt1tx2s7fmDCIEr-6E2u6QQ
 
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actkk

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Apologies if I mispoke. I am not refuting any of what you said as being untrue. I'm just curious as to why an SSD failing would make an OS on an HDD unable to boot. It's rather strange to me.

To explain what I was talking about with the clone drive, I am referring to a past repair I did once. In that instance, the OS could not start up, and startup repair did not work. In a 'why not?' trial I cloned this drive to a new drive and tried startup repair on the new drive. In that instance, the new drive actually did complete startup repair successfully and everything worked fine afterwards. I attribute that to a rare case where startup repair was unsuccessful not because of a software problem, but because of a hardware problem.

I tried the same thing here just to be 100% sure that it was not the HDD which was to blame. The problems still persisted with the new drive, so I knew that the old drive was not to blame for startup problems.

As I said before though, I find it odd that the SSD failing, and NOT the HDD failing, would make the OS stored on the HDD unable to start. Not sure what would make that happen.
 
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junkeymonkey

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well it may recognize the bad drive when loading windows and cant load its drivers or sees its bad and causes it to bsod and shut down --

like any bad part/driver/program that windows has a issue with it will bsod ?? it maybe throwing a bad signal to the controller and windows rejects it ??

if it works with out the drive and that drive as you say don't sem to be right on another computer as well it may just be a goner ??

you could try to boot to windows and get going and then hot plug the drive in and see if it detects it like a storage drive or it will cause another failure ?


''As I said before though, I find it odd that the SSD failing,' to me looking at the reviews at newegg it seems to be common more then odd ??

as I said I never had no reason to ever clone I do fresh clean installs every time of the os - that's the part I want to be 100% sure of and right every time

I see it seems most guys do clones cause they did not invest in a genuine dvd hard copy of windows -

like you said and I looked the drive is 4 years old did not review well no new up to date firmware to get on it ?? I would not expect much from it myself out side of got lucky?
 
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