Hi,

I have a HDD that I use only for file storage that has failed recently. When I have the sata connected it will not let my PC boot to windows, it will just hang at the starting windows screen. My goal is simply to just get to safe mode so that I can recover whatever I can from it.

My motherboard is an Asus M5A99FX which makes getting to safe mode an extreme, confusing adventure. Any ideas as to why a secondary data hdd would cause my system to hang on boot?

Thank you.

Sorry for bump.

Cannot even load windows in safe mode with the drive connected, although I can see it in my bios

It's an older OEM Seagate 500GB Barracuda ST3500320AS.

It has never moved from my enclosure. Was working fine until this morning when it clicked twice this morning for the first time ever and I figured i had a few days/weeks before it completely died. Opening a program that was using a file that was stored on the drive caused windows explorer to crash. Still spins and no clicks. I'd be willing to buy something like a usb adaptor , I had been meaning to anyway.

The drive had quite a bit of work/university files on it but it's not the end of the world if I can't get anything back. I just thought it was weird that a non-os drive would stop the boot process.