PC stuck at POST (Power-On Self-Test)
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Yes.
If the OS is on the 2TB Seagate then you can disconnect the 250GB WD and the system will boot into Windows. The only thing you will notice while in Windows is that the files and folders that were on the WD will not been seen in Windows Explorer.
So you can test to see if the system starts up faster with the WD disconnected. Once you are satisfied with the test you can shut down and reconnect the WD and you will be back to everything as usual.
If you wanted to test to see if the 2TB Seagate was the problem you could still do this test with no adverse effects. The only difference now will be that when you start up the computer the boot will fail and you will get an error message telling you that no bootable media was found (duh!). This test will only show you if the POST and BOOT go faster - obviously not the OS startup, but you said that OS start time was not the issue.
If you've got an older BIOS for your system, not a modern UEFI BIOS, then you may be getting the full BIOS screen report on startup (black screen with white lettering), where you can actually see the hard drives being found and initialized at the very end of the process and before Windows starts loading. Watching this can tell you a lot, because if the system is hanging on hard drives initialization you will actually see it pause there.
If you don't see the full boot report on screen it could be that a setting in the BIOS (Boot Section) needs to be flipped. Sometimes this will be "Fast Boot", but sometimes it will be another setting. Depends on the BIOS.
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![]()
Yes.
If the OS is on the 2TB Seagate then you can disconnect the 250GB WD and the system will boot into Windows. The only thing you will notice while in Windows is that the files and folders that were on the WD will not been seen in Windows Explorer.
So you can test to see if the system starts up faster with the WD disconnected. Once you are satisfied with the test you can shut down and reconnect the WD and you will be back to everything as usual.
If you wanted to test to see if the 2TB Seagate was the problem you could still do this test with no adverse effects. The only difference now will be that when you start up the computer the boot will fail and you will get an error message telling you that no bootable media was found (duh!). This test will only show you if the POST and BOOT go faster - obviously not the OS startup, but you said that OS start time was not the issue.
If you've got an older BIOS for your system, not a modern UEFI BIOS, then you may be getting the full BIOS screen report on startup (black screen with white lettering), where you can actually see the hard drives being found and initialized at the very end of the process and before Windows starts loading. Watching this can tell you a lot, because if the system is hanging on hard drives initialization you will actually see it pause there.
If you don't see the full boot report on screen it could be that a setting in the BIOS (Boot Section) needs to be flipped. Sometimes this will be "Fast Boot", but sometimes it will be another setting. Depends on the BIOS.
TV2 just one thing.
If the 250GB HDD dies and i forget to disconnect it then can i still get into the OS if only the 2TB HDD is working and the 250GB HDD is dead and still connected ?
I hope i won't forget to disconnect it, but i've got tons of stuff to do for work these days.
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If the WD drive "dies" then there will normally be no adverse affects to the system, since the OS is on the other drive.
Now, a few caveats:
- If the drive dies you will could lose all the data on the drive. Back up your data immediately if you suspect a hard drive problem - before doing anything else.
- A hard drive can "die" a few different ways. Mechanically, Electrically, or on the disk. If it dies electrically then your computer may not start. Fortunately if this happens you just unplug the drive and you are back in business.
- Anytime you suspect a hard drive failing it is best not to put it off too long. Sometimes the problems can be corrected and the drive saved - but if you let it fester a small correctable problem can become bigger. Some of these tests I mentioned don't take long and are fairly low risk.
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Zbook i was mostly asking just to know in general. It's kinda late where i live so i won't be doing the logs.
But just asking : if a HDD is failing can this cause the PC to get stuck at POST screen ?
Someone told me that the PC gets stuck because the HDD takes time to spin up. Can it take like 3-4 minutes for a 13 year old HDD SATA 2 like the one i have ?
Yes, bad hard drives can slow down or halt the POST. It is actually very common regardless if it is the boot disk or not...
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I started having a similar problem with my desktop PC. On the advice of Gigabyte I turned off any fast boot / startup options in the BIOS and all has been fine since. Having an active partition on a drive other than the main Windows 10 boot partition can also cause such problems.
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