Question Windows will not boot from new SSD or from HDD which makes clicking sounds

[SomeNutMilk]

Hello, I'm having a pretty big issue with my PC reading from my drives. The build isnt even 2 months old, and I'm just at a loss as to what the issue could be.

My specs are as follows:
EVGA 550 PSU Bronze
MSI B450 Motherboard
Ryzen 5 2400G
XFX Radeon 580 8GB Black Edition (overclocked to appropriate XFX specifications)
1x8GB G.skill Aegis 3000ddr4
Kingston 250 GB SSD
Seagate 1000 GB HDD

I left my PC on overnight (idling on Youtube) and had to turn it off because of a constant clicking sound which woke me up. I didnt know what it was, so I tried to shut down, but my PC locked up at this point and I had to do a forced shut down on my case's power panel. I left it as is until this morning.

I tried shutting it on, and the PC just refuses to boot any of my drives. I have Windows 10 on my SSD which does not get recognized by the motherboard, nor my HDD, which I found made the same clicking noises when I tried to start up my system. When both are connected or only one is connected, the result is the same.

Booting it without any of my data drives connected still allows me to access the system BIOS though, for some reason. Im not sure why this is the case.

In terns of what may have caused this, I recently overclocked my graphics card, but it was to company specifications indicated on the website.

I have no idea where the issue lies. I narrowed it down to either both the HDD and SSDs suddenly failing (but my SSD was purchased just a month ago, and the HDD, though old, never experienced any issues up until now) a motherboard issue (though the BIOS still loads perfectly, and the fans and graphics card seem to work), or a PSU issue (if it has an issue, why is it that everything else functions?) , but I'm just not sure as to which one has the problem...

 

[gasaraki]

Disconnect your spinning hard drive. See if the machine boots up after that.

 

[SomeNutMilk]

Like I mentioned, ive tried booting it without the spinning hard drive connected and only the SSD connected, and vice versa. It would bring me to the reboot and select proper boot device screen. Booting without either of them connected brings me to the BIOS.

 

[gasaraki]

It sounds like the Windows installation was done incorrectly, where it placed the hidden partition on the spinning disk and the main Windows OS on the SSD so when the spinning drive died the OS refused to boot. I've seen it before, not a noob mistake.

 

[SomeNutMilk]

I see. I assume my HDD is just done for then. Should I attempt to repair windows with a USB boot drive with only my SSD connected?

 

[gasaraki]

Yes, I would give that a try. Never hurts.

 

[SomeNutMilk]

Alright, Ill do that later tonight, getting a boot drive ready. Thank you for your help. Worse comes to worse i'll have to end up reinstalling windows entirely which would be a bit of a pain.

I'll inquire further if there are any issues but the idea of Windows being split onto my busted HDD sounds like its the problem considering how finnicky Windows installs can be.

 

[gasaraki]

Yes, during install it creates a lot of partitions so it's better to not have any secondary drives connected while installing Windows or make sure you look at the partitions created and not just hit next in the partitions screen.

 

[SomeNutMilk]

Thank you for your help, gasaraki! Got Windows 10 up and running again with a clean install just running on my SSD. I really appreciate it.