We had a power interupt and after that WIN10 failed to boot. Got stuck. Didn't want recovery mode either.

I have the WIN10 disk but I had a really hard time booting from it. Until I took out the HD and put in a HD from another computer. Then I could run WIN10 setup and install WIN10 on this second HD and I thought I had it fixed. HD broke due to the power cut.

3 days later, exact same problem with the other HD.

So now I'm thinking the problem is elsewhere

Any of you techies have an idea? I obviously don't want to try yet another HD and burn that one too.

Could it be the PSU failing to juice the HD?

What does the dead HD look like if you hook it up to another computer? Better to diagnose whether the HD is actually dead or if it just appears that way due to a faulty SATA or power cable (or PSU for that matter)

if you're unlucky, power surge messed something up
psu is first in line, if that gave, the motherboard may have suffered damage as well.
could be a bad sata cable like 64 said

unfortunately, it might take a couple of days to diagnose the problem

swap out drives and sata data and sata power cables between the 2 computers
clear cmos. need to short some pins on the mobo, google it, simple process, takes 1 min
try booting with 1 ram stick at a time. swap sticks and places. might be a dead slot or a dead stick.
can try and swap gpus
swap psus
if you still can't identify the culprit, it's almost always the motherboard

forgot to mention, whenever you're working inside your pc, power off, psu unplugged from wall and after that hold the power button on for 5 secs or tap it a few times to completely discharge the capacitors on the mobo

If you have access to a local nerd friend/nerd for hire, have them try booting to a USB drive and see if they can access the drive that is failing to boot. If the problematic installs are starting to load Windows before failing it seems like the drive isn't completely dead/may be fine and its the OS install that's corrupted.

If you're up for trying it yourself:
If you have a working Win10 computer, you can create a bootable USB drive with recoverydrive.exe . Boot from that drive and select troubleshoot. Then select the command prompt option. Check if you can see the hard drive. Run chkdsk with repair on that drive. Run sfc /scannow targeting the Windows install on your main hdd. Then remove the USB drive and try booting from the drive.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

If the HDD is viewable while booted to USB, you can also copy off any files and documents you wish to keep to a USB drive (the bootable drive if there's enough space or a different thumb drive or USB HDD).

I'm assuming you don't have current backups since attempting a backup restore hasn't been mentioned to this point. Once you get back up and running, you should at least get a USB HDD of sufficient size and run weekly full drive backups. I use Macrium Reflect free version.

Having 2 backup drives to alternate between is a great idea if you can afford it, it gives you some additional ransomware protection (more likely to have a copy of data from pre-infection), as well as adding protection against a failed or corrupted backup disk.

Using a live cloud backup solution for the most important files gets you to full 3:2:1 backup status (3 copies, 2 media types, 1 offsite). I use OneDrive since I have O365, Google Drive or DropBox can be suitable for this tier as well as well as some of the more backup dedicated services. OneDrive integration into Win10 is pretty slick and you can get 1TB for $10 a month with an Office 365 Home subscription (also gets you Word/Excel,etc.).
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Thanks for the recommendations guys. I've been swamped with work the last days and running a game in POG, I will look at this later

I don't have to worry about backups, fortunately. It is just OS and programs, data are in the cloud.

Gabethebabe

OK, so I did a HD test through the BIOS with this result (i googled a bit, because my OS is spanish, to find the English version)

Testing Drive 1
SMART Check: PASSED
Short DST: Failed
Failure ID: (some random number)
Product ID: (some random number)

That with the 2nd HD I put in

Looks like my PC is burning HDs

Glad to hear your data is safe, didn't recognize you with that SN/Avatar Gabe.

I'd suspect your PSU is killing drives and would replace that before it kills more drives/other components. Gear to actually load test a PSU is likely to cost more than just buying a new PSU.

Just to confirm, are these spinning disks or SSDs? Spinning disks should never really fail physically due to a power cut. SSDs can be a bit more temperamental and that's why enterprise SSDs have onboard caps or batteries to flush the cache on powerloss.

This is what I was thinking too, which leads me to believe it has something to do with the psu or mobo
I have seen old psu's on their last legs cause all sorts of errors in windows, but they are not able to cause physical damage to components, unless the mobo allows it
I suspect there is a short on the mobo, either one of the electrical components or maybe there's a short from the case, i.e. metal on the case walls touching the board somewhow, can be through a loose screw you dropped or the board's backplate (back of the cpu) shorts with the case metal panel

idk what to tell you, should prob send the system to a competent technician cause there's no way the bunch of us can diagnose this over the internet

Both spinning disks. The second one from a laptop.
Fun thing is that the first HD actually passed the short and long disk test from the BIOS.

I don't know what to think right now. But since I'm going on holidays today, I think the solution will have to wait.

UPDATE

I have verified things as recommended by you guys. The problem was not related with memory or graphics card.

It could be the psu, and since I have a shitty 180 kW psu, I bought a Corsair VS450. However, when I removed the old psu and put in the new one, the computer failed to do anything at all when I click the power-on button. It just completely died on me (also when I put back the old psu). I need to find some time to find out if some connection is missing or has gone bad, it might be a problem of the case.

One thing I noticed is that my old shitty 180 kW had a mini power connector for my DVD drive that the VS450 doesn't have. They are all standard size (see image below for normal HD and the DVD drive connections).



Adapters exist for this? Do I need to get another psu?

Yeah, you need a SATA power or Molex 4 pin to 6 pin SATA slimline power adapter. Here's an example:
https://www.amazon.com/CRJ-15-Pin-Sl...8278842&sr=8-3

It seems that my motherboard died. Since I have a crappy mini atx case, I'm probably going to buy a bigger case + fitting motherboard. That will give me more choice for upgrading the graphics card, whenever that may be.

Besides making sure the motherboard is compatible with my hardware (cpu, gpu, memory, SSD), is there anything else I should pay attention to?

I don't recall what your system specs are, but if your motherboard died and you're replacing the case too, it's time to look at if a new build makes more sense than fixing what you've got (possibly keeping/repurposing some components like drives). If you have anything older than like a Haswell i5/i7 (4x00 model #), I'd suggest looking at a new build, and Haswell's getting long in the tooth itself.

The processor is not that old. I7-7700 Kaby Lake 3.6 GHz iirc. 12 GB Memory. The Radeon 460 2GB GPU is certainly something I will look to replace at some moment. Also have an m.2 SSD 2280 that should fit in most motherboards

Ah, ok, that's worth buying a replacement board for. 12GB seems like an odd/mismatched RAM config. RAM is relatively cheap (at least in the US right now) so you could look at going to 2x16GB or 2x8GB to get proper dual channel speeds.

Board size compatible with case choice and features included are the main things to look for. Larger cases can generally take smaller board sizes without issue (i.e. I run an itx board in a m-atx case for extra drive bays), so if you find a deal on an m-atx board but prefer an atx case that combo should work fine. Onboard WiFi can be handy but only pay extra for it if you plan to use it.

get a cheap board, that i7 doesn't care
and at least 16 gigs of ram, in 2x or 4x kits
if you got an 8gig stick already, look for a 2nd one that matches it exactly in frequency, latency and timings
ram prices are good now and reported to drop in the near future but don't wait up, savings are not that significant

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards...pecifications/

This is quite cheap and seems to fit. I assume that a 7th gen processor will work on an 8th generation board.

It supports my 2400 Mhz DDR4 memory, has PCI 16x, an M.2 slot for my 480 GB SSD and it goes for 60€ on Amazon

ye should be fine, might want to get one with 4 ram slots, mby you have need for more in the future

you mentioned you had a mini atx case, mini and micro are not the same shape, micro is the square one

I'm going to buy a new case. With the case I have, I have limited options for upgrading my GPU, due to space.

I've found a second hand Gigabyte B250M-DS3H for 30€. Seems a better board, but a bit older.

just a heads-up, I have a DS3H on one of my sytems, the AM4 version and it's got a genuine problem with VRMs reaching temps in excess of 110 Celsius under load. looked it up on google and apparently it's a thing. had to put a 40mm high pressure fan blow straight down on the mosfet to get it below 100c, was afraid the silicone would melt. your mileage may vary obv, possibly not a problem with that model, tho I've heard this can be common among Gigabyte boards.

Don't assume that a 7th gen proc will work on an 8th gen board, especially on the Intel side. Check the motherboard manual to confirm that you processor will work for any board being considered. Intel changes socket and platform specs basically every generation.

BTW this is the exact 8GB memory stick I have, which came combined with another brand stick of 4GB (lol preconstructed systems).

It is not exactly cheap

CLICK

EDIT: hmm, found it for 34€ on Aliexpress

first make sure it works on the new mobo before you order another

UPDATE.
I made one myself using a Molex male connector that I had and the 6-pin slim connector that I cut off my old PSU. That's an immediate value on my old PSU, that I might not get selling it. Who needs a 180W psu?




QFMFT

Indeed. 6th/7th gen cpu work with mobo with 1xx/2xx intel chipset and cannot work with the higher chipsets of the 8/9 gen boards and the reverse is also true, even though the Socket 1151 is the same. There has been some reassigning of pin functionalities between 7th and 8th generation.

So I got a sh mobo, a very simple one, ASUS PRIME B250M-K for 30€ and a new case.