Stuck On " Starting Windows " When 2nd HDD Is Connected.

Muilisx

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Long Island
It's all fixed now but not sure what caused it or what even fixed it. It just sort of fixed it self.

I was in safe mode last night running defraggler on my main storage drive as it was time for a defrag. I've done it before of course plenty of times in the past, and never had an issue. I woke up today, and the defrag was done so I immediately went into msconfig, and selected the normal startup, and rebooted. I got to the Starting Windows logo screen, and I noticed it was just hanging there. Well that's odd I said. I've had this rig for a long time now and have NEVER seen it hang like this before. With it still hanging I decided to press reset even though I DREAD doing that, and it got to the same point, and starting hanging again. Alright, so now I'm curious because nothing on my system changed at all. I simply booted into safe mode, and defragged a storage drive. Nothing to even do with my OS drive.

I booted into the BIOS, and everything looked fine. All my drives were listed. All my settings looked the same but I decided to restore defaults on the BIOS. I restored defaults, and booted back into the BIOS but this time my main storage drive wasn't listed. I also noticed a slight hang getting into the BIOS which never happened before. I shutdown, opened my case, and unplugged my main storage drive, and my computer booted normally with no issues. I just didn't have my main storage drive with all my applications, music, videos, etc. I shutdown again, plugged it back in, and it got stuck again. WTF IS GOING ON!!!!! I've been building and repairing computers since I was 9, and never encountered something so weird. Now, I know for sure this storage drive isn't dead because I can hear it spinning up when I turn the computer on. It's a Western Digital Black drive. I would be shocked if one of those just magically died like a Seagate. I couldn't even boot into safe mode with this drive connected. The screen would get flooded with the loading this loading that but then it would just hang after that. There's no OS on this drive. It's just storage! I unplugged the drive again, and started booted into Windows, and opened disk management. The place you go to partition storage drives but it was no use because if the BIOS wasn't seeing it why would this see it.

Not really sure what happened but I was in disk management, and I unplugged the drive once again power and sata, and plugged them back in, and magically the drive was found by windows. It searched for media, found all the media and assigned it a random drive letter. However, it wasn't the right drive letter it has before so nothing was working. My DVD burner became drive D which was the main storage drive letter. I switched the optical drive to J for time being, changed my storage drive back to D, put the optical back to F as I have 3 hard drives. I have a SSD for my OS which is C, my main storage which is D, a 2nd storage which is E, and my optical which is F. I then rebooted the computer, and everything is now fine.

I'm just at a loss to of WHY this happened? All I did was boot into safe mode to defrag my storage drive like I always do, and then upon reboot it was all whacked. I've NEVER seen this happen before. I boot into safe mode because defraggler can access more files to move if you do. I always boot into safe mode to defrag, and I don't do the quick defrag option. I do the full defrag option. The one that really gets in there. I just don't know why this happened. There's no OS on this drive. Everything I've read about this issue from a Google search is when the 2nd drive has an OS on it. The computer will try to boot into it and it would hang but that isn't the case with my setup so I just don't know why this magically happened.

If you have any ideas to why this could have just happened please feel free to add your 2 cents. It was weird indeed.
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 7 64-BitAMD Athlon X4 760K 3.8GhzKingston 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800AMD Radeon R7 200 2GB GDDR5
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom Build
OS
Windows 7 64-Bit
CPU
AMD Athlon X4 760K 3.8Ghz
Motherboard
MSI FM2-A75MA-E35
Memory
Kingston 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800
Graphics Card(s)
AMD Radeon R7 200 2GB GDDR5
Sound Card
Onboard
Monitor(s) Displays
Acer 24" LED HDMI
Screen Resolution
1920X1080
Hard Drives
Samsung 840 Evo 128GB SSD ( OS )
WD Black 1TB 7200RPM 16MB Cache ( Main Storage Drive )
HGST 500GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache ( 2nd Hard Drive From PS4 )
PSU
Insignia 400W
Case
Thermaltake V3 Black Edition
Cooling
Stock
Keyboard
Logitech K120
Mouse
Zelotes Gaming Mouse
Internet Speed
T-Mobile Tethering
Antivirus
ESET NOD32 + Malwarebytes Pro (All You Need + Common Sense)
Browser
Firefox 64-Bit
Other Info
This is a low / mid gaming rig which cost about $450 to build, and I LOVE IT. It does what I need it to do. I don't feel the need to drop $3,000 on a computer. I get 60FPS in WoW, and around the same in other games on mid settings, and I'm OK with that. However, my next build I plan to spend closer to a grand.
Post a shot of Disk Management with everything hooked up.
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 10 Pro x64Intel Core i7 6700KGSkill TridentZ RGB 16GB 3600 16-16-16-36EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC x2
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Skylake Special #666
OS
Windows 10 Pro x64
CPU
Intel Core i7 6700K
Motherboard
Asus Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1
Memory
GSkill TridentZ RGB 16GB 3600 16-16-16-36
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC x2
Sound Card
Realtek High Definition
Monitor(s) Displays
AOC G2460PG
Screen Resolution
1920 x 1080 144Hz
Hard Drives
Samsung 860 Pro 256GB, Seagate Barracuda 4TB x2
PSU
EVGA 1000 P2, EVGA White Custom Braided Cables
Case
Corsair Vengeance C70 Gunmetal Black
Cooling
Corsair H100i v2, Corsair ML120 x2, Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
Keyboard
Logitech G910 Orion Spectrum
Mouse
Logitech G700s
Internet Speed
Verizon Fios Quantum Gateway 75/75
Antivirus
Windows Defender, Malwarebytes Free 3.8.3
Browser
Chrome
Other Info
Corsair SP120 x4, LG Blu-ray Drive, Durabrand HT-395 100 Watt Dolby Digital Amp, Corsair H2100 Wireless 7.1 Headset
Post a shot of Disk Management with everything hooked up.

Ummm ok...

drive1.png



Drives2.png
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 7 64-BitAMD Athlon X4 760K 3.8GhzKingston 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800AMD Radeon R7 200 2GB GDDR5
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom Build
OS
Windows 7 64-Bit
CPU
AMD Athlon X4 760K 3.8Ghz
Motherboard
MSI FM2-A75MA-E35
Memory
Kingston 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800
Graphics Card(s)
AMD Radeon R7 200 2GB GDDR5
Sound Card
Onboard
Monitor(s) Displays
Acer 24" LED HDMI
Screen Resolution
1920X1080
Hard Drives
Samsung 840 Evo 128GB SSD ( OS )
WD Black 1TB 7200RPM 16MB Cache ( Main Storage Drive )
HGST 500GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache ( 2nd Hard Drive From PS4 )
PSU
Insignia 400W
Case
Thermaltake V3 Black Edition
Cooling
Stock
Keyboard
Logitech K120
Mouse
Zelotes Gaming Mouse
Internet Speed
T-Mobile Tethering
Antivirus
ESET NOD32 + Malwarebytes Pro (All You Need + Common Sense)
Browser
Firefox 64-Bit
Other Info
This is a low / mid gaming rig which cost about $450 to build, and I LOVE IT. It does what I need it to do. I don't feel the need to drop $3,000 on a computer. I get 60FPS in WoW, and around the same in other games on mid settings, and I'm OK with that. However, my next build I plan to spend closer to a grand.
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