Odd problem

[FreakingHell]

Well, I recently bought a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive to use as a secondary drive. So I installed it today. When I turned my computer back on, it was booting up Windows(the part before the log in screen) and a BSOD flashes for 1/8 of a second, then it goes back to BIOS and repeats. So I'm like wtf and boot into System Repair. Repair runs, says it may have fixed it, restarts, and the same issue. I run Startup repair again, and it asks me if I want to run a system restore. I select yes, it runs it, restarts, same issue. Run startup repair AGAIN, and it decides to tell me it cannot fix the problem automatically. Great. So I'm like okay, it's probably the hard drive. So I remove the new hard drive from my system. Turn on my computer, and try to start Windows. Another BSOD during startup, and I run through the whole above process again. So now that the new drive is unconnected and I have the same problem I'm like craaaap. So I power down my computer, and am about to go throw something through a window when I decide to try one more time for the hell of it. It boots up perfectly fine. What the hell? So now I don't know what to do. Try the drive again? Return the drive? RMA it? I'm just completely lost in what the hell just happened. I wish I could have caught what the BSOD's said, but as they only flashed for 1/8 of a second before rebooting it's not really an option.

I'm on Windows 7 by the way.

 

[SotilasSissi]

I have exact same hard drive, but never had that issue.... That's odd....

 

[Stevontoast]

I'm on Windows 7 by the way.

I'm pretty sure the OS isn't the problem
It is a hardware issue by the sounds of it...
Did you install it correctly?
It could just be faulty....

 

[FreakingHell]

I installed it correctly. I've installed many hard drives before, and I double checked it. And even if I didn't it should prevent my OS from booting as the OS is on a separate drive. Also, my BIOS reported it showing up just fine. I don't think it being faulty should stop my PC from booting either, as it's just a secondary drive.

 

[Harry Hazard]

Just to eliminate everything, you have the jumper pins set correctly? And also check(although unlikely) that your PSU provides enough power.

 

[FreakingHell]

To my knowledge there are no jumpers with SATA drives. My PSU should be enough...

 

[Harry Hazard]

<.< >.> Uh...uh...what the heck are you talking about? I said bumpers...uh...yeah. Bumpers, make sure your bumpers are in place. You never know when you might drop your computer.

Harry -- Fail 1, Win 0

You wrote HDD, I read CD.

 

[FreakingHell]

Haha...lol.

I plugged my system into one of those PSU calculator things. Using 100% load on everything, CPU, GPU, DVDRW drives, hard drives, ect, I should still have 65 watts of headroom. That's with my new HDD included. So I don't think it's the PSU. But the next time I try it I'll try it with my disc drives unplugged.

 

[Wombat]

I wouldn't blame the HD just yet. Windows can be very picky about drives and drive order. Next time it blues screens, get the values, and bring them here or to Google. Or, if you make it in to windows, check the Event Viewer and see what got recorded from those bad boots.

Try the WD diagnostic tools. The basic stuff runs without losing your data.

Also, how do you know it's set as a "secondary" drive? Many MBs will let you boot off of any SATA drive now. If your BIOS starts by trying to boot the wrong drive first, all sorts of fun can happen.

Will Windows boot in Safe Mode?

 

[UnderLord]

I always have my computer boot from the CD drive first, set it this way that way if anything happens just insert a CD and bam can reboot and get my stuff up and running. No harm in having it boot from the CD first then the sata drives then the rest of it.

 

[FreakingHell]

I wouldn't blame the HD just yet. Windows can be very picky about drives and drive order. Next time it blues screens, get the values, and bring them here or to Google. Or, if you make it in to windows, check the Event Viewer and see what got recorded from those bad boots.

Try the WD diagnostic tools. The basic stuff runs without losing your data.

Also, how do you know it's set as a "secondary" drive? Many MBs will let you boot off of any SATA drive now. If your BIOS starts by trying to boot the wrong drive first, all sorts of fun can happen.

Will Windows boot in Safe Mode?

I can't get the BSOD values because it only flashes on the screen for around an 1/8 of a second.

The fact that it gets to the Windows loading screen is enough to know it's not trying to boot from it. I only have Windows installed on the primary drive.

Haven't tried safe mode. Will try when I get back from school later.

 

[bigwilly]

Why is the 1TB WD the secondary drive? Why not make it the primary?

 

[FreakingHell]

I have a much faster(and smaller) drive for my OS and programs, to make boot up/load times quicker. This 1TB drive is for storage, mainly photos and videos.

 

[FreakingHell]

Well, now my computer will boot up with the new drive installed. BIOS detects the drive just fine. However, when I went to format the drive through Disk Management, it was oddly absent. So I can't use the drive, as it is not formatted and I can't format it. Any solutions for this new turn of events?