BSOD occurs repeatedly upon launching after installing an additional HDD or SSD.
BSOD occurs repeatedly upon launching after installing an additional HDD or SSD.
I own a PC equipped with an ASRock z270M Pro 4 motherboard and Windows 10 installed on a 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD. I’m looking to add another drive mainly for gaming purposes. After ensuring all connections are correct, I powered on the system and encountered a BSOD displaying an unhappy face along with a percentage value. The system attempted a startup repair but failed. The issue recurs with the same BSOD and percentage display, prompting an option for a system restore—this also did not resolve the problem. A recovery attempt using a USB drive running Windows 10 was unsuccessful while both drives were connected. I switched to a 4TB SSD, but the BSOD persisted during startup repair cycles. Various SATA cables, power cords, and even testing with a different storage device failed to fix the matter. When the second drive is unplugged, the main drive boots normally. It seems the UEFI might be configured in RAID mode instead of AHCI, which I discovered by checking the BIOS. Initially it was set to AHCI, but later it appeared the system was booting from the second hard drive for some reason. In the BIOS, the main 2TB drive was listed as the only boot option. The Boot/Hard Drive BBS Priorities section showed the primary drive (Main 2TB) as option 1 and the new HDD/SSD (4TB) as option 2. I considered disabling Boot Option 2 to leave only option 1 active, but it didn’t work. I can’t access the desktop when the second drive is connected. I’m uncertain about next steps but have received advice: - Consider a different power supply since my current one provides 650W, which may not meet the 570W requirement for the extra drive. - Upgrade RAM to 16GB (2x8GB). - Set up Windows on the second drive and configure it as RAID.