Solved Added 2nd HDD, Now Programs Won't Open & Hanging at Logging Off

[Excessiive]

As the long title says I just purchased a second HDD to go along with my SSD (System drive) and HDD (Storage drive). SSD is a Samsung 840 Pro. First HDD is a WD Caviar Black 1TB and the new one is WD Blue 1TB.

The OS is on the SSD but I have the folders/locations like Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, and Movies all on the storage drive. This way all the core programs are on the SSD. The new HDD is to store all my games on and that's all that's on there for now, I have my Steam and Origin Libraries on it.

Everything was working perfectly fine before installing the new hard drive. Now I'm having issues with programs not opening with the exception being Chrome. iTunes, Steam, Origin etc all don't open but their processes run. When this happens the computer also doesn't shut down as it hangs at Logging Off so I'm forced to hold down the power button until it shuts down.

Now the strange thing is this happens and if I keep restarting it, eventually all works as normal. However the next time I start up it goes back to the same problem with programs not opening and then hanging at Logging Off.

I've noticed two things that happen when I'm having the errors that may help find out the problem. On the problem start ups, if I open Computer to look at the drives it all appears fine, and then I click on a folder such as Documents and then back to the Computer page, the two optical drive slots, CD Rom and BD Rom both turn into blank white pages. The other thing that happens is when I go to the disk management page I the endless search for virtual disks problem.

I'm going to try and unplug my new HDD and plug it back in and maybe try it in another motherboard slot. I've already tried the normal solutions to the program not opening like running Malwarebytes to search for problems and scanned for disk errors but to no avail. What I'm confused about is why is this happening randomly and working eventually if I keep restarting. I didn't touch the other two drives when I installed the new one so why would those be affected? As I said all the .exe's are on the SSD so I'm not sure why they're suddenly having problems.

I've just tried switching the SATA port for the new HDD and checked all other connections and it didn't help.

I know this is a long post but any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[GEWB]

The assigned drive letters may have changed when you added the drive. Use a utility or Windows Disk Management to reassign the drive back to the previous order plus the new partition(s).

Regards,
GEWB

 

[Excessiive]

The drive letters are all still the same. It does seem like it could be an issue with the indexing getting all jumbled up but that wouldn't explain why it works perfectly normal if I restart it enough times. The main problem with this though is that sometimes I have to shut it down with the power button 5+ times before I get it working properly.

 

[paul1149]

If you pull the new hard drive is everything back to OK again? The only thing I can think of is a BIOS flash. Make sure all the HD connections are clean and good. Try reseating the RAM.

 

[whs]

Can you post a picture of disk management

 

[Excessiive]

I'll give that a try Paul.

Here's the disk management.

 

[whs]

That looks all very good. The problem is a real mystery.

 

[Excessiive]

If you pull the new hard drive is everything back to OK again? The only thing I can think of is a BIOS flash. Make sure all the HD connections are clean and good. Try reseating the RAM.

Removed the HDD to see if it was the issue and but didn't work. Also tried flashing the BIOS which was quite old but still didn't fix it. All connections are solid and the original SSD connection was never altered in the first place so this is really baffling me. I'm starting to think I'm going to have to reinstall Windows if that would even help this. If I did a new install and then restored my system off an external drive would this problem come back you think?

Anyone else have any ideas? I'm going to contact Microsoft support when they're next open. Thanks for the help so far I appreciate any and all suggestions.

 

[paul1149]

The next thing I would try is to pull the optical drives. Windows is having a problem accessing them, and perhaps one of them is causing the hangs. Worth a try.

If that doesn't change anything, you could try reverting to a restore point, or Last known good configuration.

As a MB control, you could run a linux live distro off a dvd or usb stick and see how it performs. I recommend linux lite.

 

[maxseven]

The next thing I would try is to pull the optical drives.

Along this line, what is the capacity of your Power Supply? Maybe it can't handle the extra load, or you might try a different plug location (from the PSU).

Your BIOS might also have a System Info display showing the various voltages.

 

[paul1149]

Along this line, what is the capacity of your Power Supply? Maybe it can't handle the extra load, or you might try a different plug location (from the PSU).

That's a great point. When you pulled the new hard drive, did you disconnect its power cable as well?

 

[Excessiive]

The next thing I would try is to pull the optical drives. Windows is having a problem accessing them, and perhaps one of them is causing the hangs. Worth a try.

If that doesn't change anything, you could try reverting to a restore point, or Last known good configuration.

As a MB control, you could run a linux live distro off a dvd or usb stick and see how it performs. I recommend linux lite.

The next thing I would try is to pull the optical drives.

Along this line, what is the capacity of your Power Supply? Maybe it can't handle the extra load, or you might try a different plug location (from the PSU).

Your BIOS might also have a System Info display showing the various voltages.

Removed my optical drive and disabled the virtual BD rom drive and bang it worked. Thanks so much for the help everyone. Now I was trying to think what could be causing that all of the sudden as I built this back in the beginning of the summer 2013 and it hasn't given me a problem yet. It's a 750W PSU so it definitely shouldn't be an issue as I'm running a GTX 660 and not SLI GTX 980 TI or anything like the cool kids. I could give a look to see if anything was suddenly overdrawing power if that's even possible.

 

[Excessiive]

Along this line, what is the capacity of your Power Supply? Maybe it can't handle the extra load, or you might try a different plug location (from the PSU).

That's a great point. When you pulled the new hard drive, did you disconnect its power cable as well?

I did right after I just tried pulling the sata cable at first thinking that could be a problem but it didn't help. When I pulled the optical drive I left the power plug in and it started working so I definitely think it had something to do with the sata connection between the optical drive and motherboard.

 

[paul1149]

Very cool. I suppose the next thing is to try a different optical drive.