System failure detected, no display appearing.
System failure detected, no display appearing.
Hello, I’m facing a problem with my computer not starting Windows 11. Prior to the issue, I transferred my old hard drive from a family PC that I hadn’t used for years, hoping it would free up space. I connected it via the SATA port on my motherboard and powered it up through the PSU. Initially everything looked normal until I pressed the power button. The mainboard and Windows logo appeared but no output was detected. After some attempts, I suspected a corrupted system file, so I erased the SSD using the BIOS’ erase option. Then I used a USB drive with Windows installation media to download Windows 11. Surprisingly, it worked initially. However, during the download, my PC restarted itself and then froze at the boot screen, showing only the motherboard logo before going blank.
I tried to fix it by replacing the old SSD with a new one, disposing of the old drive, installing the flash drive, and downloading Windows again. But once I logged into my Microsoft account and restarted twice, the screen returned to black.
When I reinserted the old HDD into the drive bay next to the power supply, I encountered difficulty closing the side panel, so I laid the case open. I checked for loose connections on the motherboard but found none. Before wiping the SSD, the PC booted normally into safe mode and then into BIOS. I suspect this isn’t a GPU issue—I remember using Windows 7 on that old drive and doubt it’s the root cause. My friend mentioned static electricity could have affected the system.
I also noted that my room lacks carpeting, and I’m currently in Bulgaria at 1:10 A.M. Good night, thank you for your help. I’ll check this later and upload a video of the boot process.
Honestly, just sounds like a faulty HDD causing boot issues. That HDD you plugged in is likely causing the system to hang/crash. It's a very common issue with older failing HDDs. If it's 10 years+ old it's pretty likely. A failing HDD even just connected via sata can cause the whole system to crash solely by being plugged in, it doesn't need to be the main boot drive. A simple way to test if this is the case is to just unplug that old HDD and try reinstalling Windows again. You likely didn't even need to wipe your SSD to begin with. Simply unplugging the HDD from the beginning likely would have allowed the system to properly boot into Windows again. I see this issue almost daily so I'm fairly confident that is what is causing the issues.
I omitted the drive and maintained the SSD on the motherboard initially when the system failed to start. After removing the HDD, I kept it that way. Despite this change, Windows still won’t boot. P.S. The SSD wasn’t being seen or detected by the motherboard in the BIOS.
I identified the issue! The problem lies with Windows 11. Because I purchased a new SSD, I couldn't access the proper settings for Windows 11. The download would crash, so I used the Windows 10 installation media on my flash drive and installed 10 instead of 11. Everything is now functioning smoothly, and I'm typing this from my PC!