Pc will not start up with more than 1 internal hard drive

Ziva

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Oct 31, 2011
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18,510
Hi all. I am hoping someone can help me here. I have a 500GB Toshiba sata hdd as my OS drive. I have not had 1 day of hassles with this drive. I was given 2 Samsung drives from a friend. Both these drives work 100%. The 1TB we took out of a pc and it was running the OS on that pc. It didnt have any problems. The 1.5TB is from another pc that was used an extra hdd. It was still working and we formated the hdd before taking it out of that pc. Now the problem that I have is this...no matter in what order i put these hdd's or just try to connect one at a time..my windows refuses to start up...None of the drives share a psu cable. They all get connected to their own string. I get the windows logo and the little circle under it for the loading and then suddenly a blue screen with the sad face for about half a second and then the pc start over. I can see all 3 the drives when the pc starts and i get a post but that is it..

I recorded this as I wanted to see the error..but there is no error on it. I can put these 2 Samsung drives into an external enclosure and the pc detects it no problem. My pc will also start up with only my main drive plugged in. I am really at wits end and have no idea how to fix this.

Any input would be much appreciated..:)
 
Solution
Make sure that when all 3 drives are plugged in that you Toshiba drive is the actual boot drive. It sounds like when you add the other 2 internally that it might switch over to the Samsung drive that has an OS on it failing bootup at the windows circle since it doesn't have the right drivers for that windows install. When you attach them externally the boot order most likely looks for 1)sata 2)optical 3) usb so it never gets to the other drives before booting into windows.
Make sure that when all 3 drives are plugged in that you Toshiba drive is the actual boot drive. It sounds like when you add the other 2 internally that it might switch over to the Samsung drive that has an OS on it failing bootup at the windows circle since it doesn't have the right drivers for that windows install. When you attach them externally the boot order most likely looks for 1)sata 2)optical 3) usb so it never gets to the other drives before booting into windows.
 
Solution

Ziva

Distinguished
Oct 31, 2011
8
0
18,510
I have cleared the windows off that drive after the first failed attempt. I used and external enclosure for it. I have also made sure that all the drives are in order on the mobo sata ports. This is what has me so confused. Out of all 3 the drives i have plugged in only the Toshiba has something on it..namely my OS. The other 2 are clean.