No options on my computer will boot, HDD failure? Please help!

Greenfield2222

Reputable
Oct 13, 2015
2
0
4,510
Alright so i am going to start from the top. About two weeks ago i bought new parts for my computer. I switched from a AMD CPU to an Intel I5, and also changed out the motherboard because it was incompatible. I ran into some issues due to drivers not being installed and old drivers already installed blah blah blah, i fixed that and have had my computer running the past couple of weeks fine. I could tell my computer was a tad bit slower but my games ran GREAT. Just today my games start freezing up, i play high FPS games like Arma 3, rust, dayz, ect... So my computer is being worked. Now it was not like any other freezing, my computer would literally freeze up, not just the game. CRT+ALT+DEL would not even be responsive, and when my computer unfroze after several Min's it would give me a error that my crt+alt+del security something would not work, i can't really remember the error. But later in the day it got worse and worse, to a point i had to restart the computer. Once i restarted it would not boot. It brings me to the Windows error recovery page were i can choose "Launch startup repair" Or "Start windows normally". Launching the startup repair immediately brings me back to the selection..i mean immediately. The normal start up trys to boot windows but fails and goes back to the selection but after 35 seconds roughly. I have tried safe mod, safe mod command prompt, windows memory diagnostic, last known configuration, repair my computer, ect..all options failed and went back to the launch startup repair selection..Besides the diagnostic, it diagnosed it but didn't do anything. I was going to try and system restore but that is the last known config options that will not work. I also tested my RAM and they didn't effect anything. Im thinking my HDD is fried but i cannot tell, it has not made any sounds or anything, so i don't know why it would fail so suddenly. I'm running Windows 7, i have a Gigabyte H97-HD3, Intel i54690, Power supply is a 600b, and my HDD is a 1TB Baracuda, also my GCard is a asus r9 280x. I can access my Gigabyte BIOs as well, but haven't found much help in there because i don't really know what to do. Thanks for all help in advance and i will reply to all questions very fast.
 
Welcome to the TH community, Greenfield2222!

I'd recommend you to swap the SATA cable with a different one and even try plugging the drive in a different SATA port on the mobo. Another thing you should do is go to your HDD manufacturer's website and find their diagnostic tool for DOS. The DOS version will help you do full diagnostics on the drive without booting into Windows. This is how you'd be able to determine the health and SMART status of the drive itself. If you have access to another computer, try plugging the drive there and see if it will get properly detected.
Once you've done this, you could also try resetting BIOS using one of these methods: http://www.wikihow.com/Reset-Your-BIOS

Hope this helps you. Keep us posted!
SuperSoph_WD
 

Greenfield2222

Reputable
Oct 13, 2015
2
0
4,510
i tried the solutions and nothing worked, i have changed out the HDD and it seems to be working properly, i have a new key for W7 so i am installing it now, but what could have caused this? I don't want to run into this problem again or fry this HDD swell, any ideas?
 
Well, Greenfield2222, I think that your issue was the HDD itself. Mechanical hard drives are very sensitive in their architecture, so it's not uncommon for them to fail out of the blue. The best way to prevent any potential headaches is to always have a backup of the data stored on a different storage device/HDD outside of your system. Once you have everything up and running, I'd suggest you to try plugging the failed drive in a docking station or via SATA and use its manufacturer's diagnostic tool to test the health and SMART status.

Best of luck! Hope we were helpful! :)
SuperSoph_WD