Hardware Why is my hard drive keeping my computer from turning on?

[Nerdtendo]

Well really it's my friends computer. We're putting it together and it gets power and everything up until we plug in the SATA cable on the hard drive. After that, it won't power on. We've tried two SATA cables and nothing has worked. Any ideas?

 

[ry755]

Did you try a different SATA port on the motherboard? Also, do you have another hard drive to try? There could be shorted pins on the hard drive's SATA connector.

 

[Nerdtendo]

Well we tried the hard drive out of his laptop and after some finesse it started working. I think he just bought a bad hard drive, we'll try again in a second

 

[ry755]

You're trying to use a laptop hard drive in a desktop? That isn't really a problem, but it might make things run slower.

 

[Nerdtendo]

You're trying to use a laptop hard drive in a desktop? That isn't really a problem, but it might make things run slower.

Just for testing purposes. The actual hard drive is the one not working

 

[Nerdtendo]

Well now of course we can't configure bios to run windows probably because bios isn't recognizing any hard drive but it's whatever we're figuring it out.

 

[cracker]

Use a bootable disc that has a S.M.A.R.T. testing tool on it. Sounds like a bad drive to me.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Is it SATA power or SATA data that hangs the system? If it's power it could also be a short somewhere

 

[Nerdtendo]

Is it SATA power or SATA data that hangs the system? If it's power it could also be a short somewhere

It's SATA power. I think we're gonna take it in to Best Buy

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Ok then it's almost DEFINITELY a short. Are you, by any chance, running the hard drive in one of those hot-swap drive cages? And if no, are you using the same cable for both the 2.5" and 3.5" drives?

 

[Nightwish]

Yeah, if connecting something stops it from booting, it's a damaged component. Thankfully, there's a lot of protections that prevent it from from burning the motherboard these days, but stop pushing your luck and trash/return it.

 

[spectral]

A long shot, but best to rule it out. Are you using any kind of extension cable on the sata power cable to make it reach? Also is the PSU modular? If so make sure its in properly at the PSU end and als that its definitely plugged into the correct port. If th PSU has other sata cables it could be worth trying those too.

Also to make sure, when you say its when the power is connected, does it still fail if the power is connected but no data cable at all is?

 

[Nerdtendo]

Yeah it's gotta be busted. We'll have to see if we can get a refund on it