[SOLVED] PC won't boot into Windows after installing water cooler

Dec 7, 2018
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Just installed my Corsair H100i Pro water cooler. Initially I tried to put on the top of my case, but the RAM sticks got in the way. I took those out while I figured out what I wanted to do. I ended up putting the unit on the front of my case and put the RAM back in. All in all the install went smoothly. While I was in there I disconnected an unused SSD (no files or anything on it) leftover from an upgrade since I needed the SATA cable for the water cooler. After reconnecting everything I tried to turn on the PC and it wouldn't post. I realized I didn't reseat the RAM completely, so I did that. I tried to turn on the PC again and it booted into the bios, but it won't let me boot into the SSD that has Windows. I just get a black screen for a few seconds with an underscore blinking and then puts me back in the bios. It of course sees the SSD as well as my HDD. I've tried unplugging the water cooler for just a moment and plugged in the old stock cooler I was using before, but I am still getting the same problem. I've checked all my connections and replugged a bunch of them. I'm really stumped on what could have gone wrong here. I used the EZ flash function to look at my SSD and I can see that all my files are still on there. I've tried changing a bunch of bios settings and resetting to default and still no luck there. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My rig is:
Asus P97-A
i7-4790K
4x8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
GTX 1080
 
Solution
If that unused ssd was in the system when you installed windows, the boot files may actually be on it.

You may need to get a power splitter to add the drive back in so that you can test.