Gaming So my desktop PC won't boot...

[War]

I was using my desktop PC all day yesterday, and it was working just fine. Never got any errors, lag, or anything. So at night, I shut it off, and went to bed. This morning, I turned it on and went to go have breakfast. When I got back, I realized that the loading bar was stuck. That is, the loading bar in the very first boot screen, the one that says "DELL" (if you have a Dell computer...). It's the one that comes before the Windows boot screen. It's also where you can access the boot menu and all that. So yeah, that's where it gets stuck. It was stuck... I'd say around the 80% mark. So I turned the PC off the "unsafe way" (holding down the power button) and turned it on again. This time, it went a bit further in the loading bar and got stuck. I've tried this about 3 more times, and every single time it gets stuck at the same place. I've never had this problem happen with ANY computer, so I honestly don't know what to do. I tried accessing the boot menu, but then I realized that for some reason, everything plugged in to a USB port doesn't seem to work. The keyboard is off, the mouse is off, and my external HDD is off as well.

 

[Psyfira]

Does it make the usual beep sound computers do when you turn it on? The pattern and length of the beeps can help indicate what's wrong.

Otherwise, the first thing I'd do is unplug all those USB devices and boot up without them. Yes I know you won't be able to do much but if it still gets stuck it rules out one of the peripherals causing the problem. Try getting hold of a non-USB keyboard (assuming your desktop has a standard keyboard port) and seeing if that'll fly to get into the boot menu.

Finally, take a look on Dell's website and see if they have a service manual for your desktop model. I remember being amazed at the detail they had in there when fixing one for my sister's friend.

 

[notnarb]

something similar has happened to two of my computers, like Psyfira said, unplug all of your USB devices and if that doesn't work, try the oldschool trick of unplugging your computer for 10 minutes or so (that has fixed more obscure problems for me then I'd like to count, across different computers too, two of which were Dells). If neither of those work try booting into setup (f2?) or the boot menu (f12), try some fiddling in setup or booting from a CD if you can get to the boot menu

 

[War]

Hm... well, I'm not 100% sure yet, but it seems like the problem behind this is my external HDD. :\ For some reason, it seems like when the external is plugged in (to any USB slot) the PC just refuses to boot. If I remove the external from the USB slot, the PC boots just fine. What could be causing this? This problem only recently started... my PC used to boot just fine, even with the external plugged in. Also, the external works fine... its not corrupted or anything.

 

[blitzer320]

what formats are on the hard drive because it may be trying to read from the usb if you have a usb option in your bios

 

[War]

Sigh... well apparently, my external died or something. I can't access it or even see it on my desktop PC anymore, and when I try plugging it into my eeePC, it says unrecognized USB and doesn't show it either.

 

[moose3]

I am thinking of 2 things:

1) If your system had the bios setup of CD, external HD, then internal HD, and it was a dead drive, then it was hanging while trying to find if there was something to boot on the external. If your system only shows the USB boot option when the device is plugged in, then now with it out, you can't check if that was the case unless you can still access the boot options even with the dead drive in.

2) A power supply that is degrading and no longer supplying enough juice so trying to run power to all the devices on boot and it crashed (might have fudged up the usb drive if that occurred?). I have had that happen to me on a system. Unplug a DVD drive, or second hard drive and it booted up, replace the power supply, and it all booted up just fine.

Unless you have an identical external USB drive you are willing to risk, hard to check and see if it was the bad drive, or power issues.

Can't remember exactly, but something about using disk manager on a USB HD, and I had had drives show up there when they would not normally under windows occasionally when I was messing around with an IDE-USB adapter. Might work, let you nuke and reformat the partition table on the USB device, maybe bring it back to life.

 

[weiff]

PC tech here... do you or have you updated your Windows recently to SP3 or running Vista?

If so then it is normal. SP3(or Vista) is set to recognize a usb drive as a bootable device and will try it before the internal drive. Much the way it used to look for a disk in the floppy before booting.

If not, then it is the device drivers. Go into control panel and device manager delete the device entirely (it will have to be plugged in and on to do this easily). Reboot with the device unplugged and then let it reinstall. Then shut down and see if it starts up normally.

 

[Raki]

PC tech here... do you or have you updated your Windows recently to SP3 or running Vista?

If so then it is normal. SP3(or Vista) is set to recognize a usb drive as a bootable device and will try it before the internal drive. Much the way it used to look for a disk in the floppy before booting.

This is checked BEFORE Windows is started...this is one function of the BIOS