Computer freezing on any bios screen. No USB connections will work.

Wocl2 · 07 Feb 2015

Hello, my computer power button recently stopped working. I went and bought a new one, and installed it. It may have been stupid of me (sort of new to hardware installation) but I installed a laptop 250gb hdd into one of my sata ports. In the end I was going to uninstall it but forgot to. I then started the computer up and after bios screen I get this 'disk read error occured'. At this point I knew what I had done wrong and uninstalled the hdd. I restarted my computer and the same error occurs. When I tried to go into any bios screens it just freezes. Anybody know a solution?

Edit: the power button works fine to start up the computer

ICIT2LOL · 08 Feb 2015

Hello and welcome Wolc now my obvious question is - is that drive you installed new or used? and if used what did you do to prepare it before putting it into the machine?

Also how old is the machine mate as we would really like to know at that motherboard is can you post back the make and model.

One last thing have you recently updated the BIOS?

Wocl2 · 08 Feb 2015

Motherboard make is gigabyte ga970a-ds3p. The hdd was used, so I believe at this point that it may have had a root kit on it. The drive did have data on it. Thepc was made in late 2013

ICIT2LOL · 08 Feb 2015

Ok well as a matter of course I always wipe or clean all drives before reusing them as it does make sure no stuff is left behind to cause problems.

Now one thing you can do is run this it means you have to make a bootable disk set the BIOS to boot from the optical or a USB stick (I prefer a disk) and let it run. It does that independent of Windows (it is not involved I any way) How to record Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 to a USB device and boot a computer from it

Do tha and let us know the results.

alphanumeric · 08 Feb 2015

Connecting a "laptop" SATA drive is OK by the way. SATA is SATA regardless of the physical size of the drive. I have 2.5 SSD drives in my laptops and desktop PC's. I would go into your BIOS and check the Boot order section to make sure you current hard drive is set as the first device. I see that you can't get into your BIOS so I would try resetting it to defaults with the motherboard jumper. Your manual should list the procedure. Follow that procedure carefully so you don't damage your motherboard. Another way to do it is to unplug the PC power supply from the wall outlet and remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard. 10 minutes should do it, then plug it back in and power up. While you have the case open make sure you didn't accidently unplug a cable on your hard drive.

ICIT2LOL · 08 Feb 2015

That is a good tip from alpha mate and one I had missed re the CMOS battery - I leave mine out for half an hour only because the Asus boards I have used are finicky.

Now the motherboard specs you can find easily by just looking at the thing it should be quite prominent. So please let us know what it is.

Wocl2 · 09 Feb 2015

Well, I have tried to boot a repair tool from a usb, but just says no OS found. If I try to run a bios upgrade off of a flash drive, it says BOOTMGR is missing. My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3p. I have also reset CMOS, but still cannot get into BIOS.

Wocl2 · 09 Feb 2015

Finally! Problem solved. You ever get that overwhelming sense of luck? Well, if this isn't luck I don't know what is. So, my friend came over, who knows the same amount about computers as me. He knows the same amount about computers as I do. He just got onto the boot screen, pressed f12, and it went into the BIOS menu. I have already tried this step before. Luck or odd coincidence anybody? Also my SSD was in fact corrupt.

ICIT2LOL · 09 Feb 2015

Well just goes to show how convoluted things can be. I did mention at the start re that drive and you said it was used - bad move mate I never use used drives for installing my OS's on so lesson learned albeit the hard way (good pun eh?) :)

I am puzzled why you added a sarcastic emoticon though