Hardware I accidentally plugged a corrupted (or broken) HDD to my pc and a brand new one isn't booting

[SquidGuy]

Ok, so basically I was changing HDDs and I plugged a corrupted (or broken) one. When I realized that I plugged the wrong one, I turned off my pc and plugged in the new one. The pc itself was booting but the operating system wasn't (neither was it booting when i was plugging the broken one). Is it fixable?

 

[tech3475]

I would first check the boot device order in the BIOS.

 

[SquidGuy]

I would first check the boot device order in the BIOS.

How do you do that and how will that help me?

 

[tech3475]

How do you do that and how will that help me?

Depends on the motherboard, the manual would be the best place to look but typically to get into the BIOS it's by pressing either Esc, F2 or Delete from my experience.

Then it really does depend on your motherboard as they can vary between systems e.g. some have a full GUI while others text based.

 

[zxr750j]

Boot from USB or dvd and reinstall Windows.

 

[SquidGuy]

Boot from USB or dvd and reinstall Windows.

But it's probably a HDD problem

 

[ThoD]

Boot order shouldn't have changed unless you removed the BIOS battery or something so it's not that. When you say "corrupted" or "broken", what exactly are you talking about? First off, check ALL HDD-related connections (power and SATA) to make sure they are plugged in correctly. Then, if it's a fried HDD it's possible it short-circuited the motherboard's section meant for HDD connections, although that happens rarely. Another more likely cause would be a PSU issue, which again, if it's a fried disk is possible. Describe EXACTLY what happens when you try to boot, like fans spinning, disk making sounds (or making sounds and stopping for a second only to make sound again), whether there is display of any sort (if there is BIOS will pop a message with what the issue is most of the time), etc.

Boot from USB or dvd and reinstall Windows.

That's the most useless way to troubleshoot to be honest... If the issue is the HDD reinstalling Windows will only create more problems.

 

[SquidGuy]

Boot order shouldn't have changed unless you removed the BIOS battery or something so it's not that. When you say "corrupted" or "broken", what exactly are you talking about? First off, check ALL HDD-related connections (power and SATA) to make sure they are plugged in correctly. Then, if it's a fried HDD it's possible it short-circuited the motherboard's section meant for HDD connections, although that happens rarely. Another more likely cause would be a PSU issue, which again, if it's a fried disk is possible. Describe EXACTLY what happens when you try to boot, like fans spinning, disk making sounds (or making sounds and stopping for a second only to make sound again), whether there is display of any sort (if there is BIOS will pop a message with what the issue is most of the time), etc.


That's the most useless way to troubleshoot to be honest... If the issue is the HDD reinstalling Windows will only create more problems.

I'll come back to this thread later because I'm on holiday currently so I can't really tell u right now. I'll pick up on this thread in a couple of days if that's ok