PC trys loading windows files at bootup after connecting second HDD for storage, wont boot.

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aceshye

Reputable
Jan 2, 2015
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This is a weird one..I have just built a new machine and had my OS on a new hard drive. All works fine until I connect a second hard drive from my old computer to use as storge(seagate 2TB). There are already files on this drive and i would like to use as storage. Had no issues with drive in old PC. When I boot up, the computer starts to attempt to load window files as it would during initial OS install. It then fails and can't find boot disc, asks to Cntl+Alt+Del to reboot. Goes thru same thing with same results. I checked the bios/boot order and it points to the correct drive with the OS as first boot order. It can also see the secound drive I have attached so not sure what the issue is. Obviously when I diconnect the second drive the mchine boots up fine. What is causing this?

Thanks,
Greg
 
Solution
WyomingKnott
Most likely the second disk was made bootable at one time and is still marked as bootable.
System tries to boot from it; fails.

The quick way to check this is to interrupt the boot to get to the boot menu; it's F10 on my system but there should be a prompt. Select your system drive and see if it boots.

The long-term solution would be to use a disk editing utility to mark the storage drive as unbootable. Don't know how to do this off the top of my head. A short-term solution would be to attach your system drive to SATA port 1 in the ports controlled by the chipset. I know that that sounds strange, but every time the attached complement of drives is changed the BIOS re-sets which disk to boot from to the first one that it finds...
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WyomingKnott

WyomingKnott

Legenda in Aeternum
Aug 29, 2006
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Most likely the second disk was made bootable at one time and is still marked as bootable.
System tries to boot from it; fails.

The quick way to check this is to interrupt the boot to get to the boot menu; it's F10 on my system but there should be a prompt. Select your system drive and see if it boots.

The long-term solution would be to use a disk editing utility to mark the storage drive as unbootable. Don't know how to do this off the top of my head. A short-term solution would be to attach your system drive to SATA port 1 in the ports controlled by the chipset. I know that that sounds strange, but every time the attached complement of drives is changed the BIOS re-sets which disk to boot from to the first one that it finds that's marked bootable. If your system drive is on port 1, it will always find that one first! At least, it worked for me, and I have two hot-swappable drive bays.

Let us know if this works for you.
 
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Xibyth

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Mar 22, 2014
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It's likely the drives are set up to use two different configurations. AKA one was set up for RAID the other AHCI. You may consider an encloser, and plugging it in while the PC is on and checking it's configuration or better yet backing it up and using the clean all command in diskpart.
 
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ArtPog

Admirable
Sep 17, 2014
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Don't know if you've resolved your problem but if you haven't --- here's a possibility of what's causing the problem.

Ensure that your new HDD is connected to your motherboard's first SATA connector which will be designated SATA 0 or SATA 1. It's a rare occurrence in our experience but we have come across situations where the system adamantly refuses to boot to the desired drive if it is not connected to the first SATA connector. And this happens even when the BIOS boot order indicates the desired bootable drive is first in boot priority. Again, this is an extremely rare occurrence in our experience and may have no bearing on your situation but I thought I would mention it.
 
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