Drive Fails to Boot; Please Help

sharpiedpanda

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Nov 20, 2011
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Hello,

So this morning my ocz psu got nuked by some water :( i saw the mobo flash like it was going to turn on and then nothing (seemed like a short). I swapped out the psu for a working one and verified that the mobo and the cpu were not nuked. After that I checked the RAM and that was fine. The BIOS recognized the two hard drives (HDD:500GB 7200RPM data drive and SSD: 80GB boot drive) yet the computer didn't want to load the OS.

I then tried tossing the SSD into my laptop and the laptop could not progress past the POST due to lack of boot drive.

I booted my desktop off of my laptop HDD and it was fine, plugged in the other 2 drives and all of the data on the two drives was still there.

Does anyone know what could be wrong with the SSD or why I am unable to boot from it yet I can still access all of the files on it?

Any help would really be appreciated; once I get that working I can test the other parts :/

Thanks
 
Well, it is _possible_ that the boot sector was wiped out, in which case a Repair installation from the distribution CD will fix the problem.

If you have recent backups, you can do what I would do: Save any data that changed since the backups, do a Secure Erase of the SSD, and restore the backup. I never trust a corrupted and patched OS.
 

drwho1

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I think he is right.
If you can still access your files on your SSD, then is not a hardware issue, try to save the files to another drive and wipe the SSD and re install the OS.
 

sharpiedpanda

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So just an update.

I replaced my PSU with an identical one and hooked up my computer just like it was. I first booted with my Linux drive and it was a successful boot. I then tried the SSD and the machine stated up like I never left it.

Is there something in the SSD's firmware that only allows the drive to boot when it is tied to specific hardware? I found this very strange.

-SP