PC wont boot with second HDD connected

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shadysll

Prominent
Oct 17, 2017
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My old WD 1TB HDD had issues with slow booting, partitions/files becoming unreadable etc and at one point my PC wouldn't even boot, so I had to do a clean windows install to format the drive and got it to work for some time again.

After that, I bought an SSD and installed windows on that drive. I figured i could still use the old HDD for storage and it worked fine for a few weeks, and then one day i experienced the same problem as before - PC wouldnt boot, so i took the HDD out and the PC booted as usual.

I thought I wouldnt have this issue since the OS is installed on my SSD, is there any way to prevent this? I would still like to use the HDD if possible, but if i have to find a way to format it without booting the pc everytime it starts failing, i might have to stop using it altogether.
 
Solution
A
It IS possible (as hang-the-9 has indicated) that if the secondary HDD is DEFECTIVE, that MIGHT cause the system to balk at the boot. Sometimes yes, sometimes it has no effect.

In any event your FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS is to determine whether or not you're dealing with a defective 1 TB HDD. Since the system won't boot with the HDD installed at the time the PC is powered-on, you have two choices.
1. Connect the HDD as a USB external drive to the system after you're able to boot to the OS with the SSD boot drive. Then use a HDD diagnostic program to test the health of the HDD, or

2. After booting to the OS with only the SSD boot drive connected, then internally-connect the HDD. That will work ONLY if your BIOS supports "hot swapping"...
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lemonbek

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Oct 18, 2017
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Just make sure you have set the SSD as the boot drive in the BIOS, I had the same issue and I could only use my HDD if I plugged it in once the PC booted into windows.
 
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ArtPog

Admirable
Sep 17, 2014
2,951
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It IS possible (as hang-the-9 has indicated) that if the secondary HDD is DEFECTIVE, that MIGHT cause the system to balk at the boot. Sometimes yes, sometimes it has no effect.

In any event your FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS is to determine whether or not you're dealing with a defective 1 TB HDD. Since the system won't boot with the HDD installed at the time the PC is powered-on, you have two choices.
1. Connect the HDD as a USB external drive to the system after you're able to boot to the OS with the SSD boot drive. Then use a HDD diagnostic program to test the health of the HDD, or

2. After booting to the OS with only the SSD boot drive connected, then internally-connect the HDD. That will work ONLY if your BIOS supports "hot swapping" and there's a setting for such. Many of the older motherboards do not support hot-swapping; virtually all the newer ones do. So if it works then you can test the HDD that way.

Obviously if you can get your hands on another PC perhaps you can find a way to connect the HDD as a secondary drive that way.
 
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