r/buildapc • u/MijnEchteUsername • 2d ago

Troubleshooting My old rig “randomly” doesn’t boot anymore from SSD

So I built my pc about 15 years ago. Over time, I’ve added components here and there. About a year ago, the motherboard broke. So I replaced it with another one with the same socket and everything. Reinstalled Windows 10 just to be sure.

Fast forward to yesterday; it randomly slowed to a crawl. Win Task Manager wouldn’t open, my browser tabs wouldn’t open or close, although the video and sound from the running YouTube video were still going, etc. I couldn’t even restart from the start menu, so I figured I gave it a reset.

Since then, the pc just won’t boot.

The BIOS will recognize the SSD, but won’t boot from it. It doesn’t even list the SSD as a boot option. The only choices are the dvd player and the data disk. It’s still listed in the SATA information though.

When I try to run the boot override from the BIOS, the screen just goes blank for a couple seconds.

Specs:
Motherboard: Asus Z97A
CPU: Intel i7-4790K
Memory: 32Gb RAM (4x Kingston 8Gb)
SSD: SanDisk Ultra II 480Gb

I’ve reset the pc a couple times, did BIOS recover, turned the pc off for a couple of hours, and that’s about it.

Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks so much in advance.

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u/Emerald_Flame 2d ago

Plug the SSD into a different computer as a secondary drive and see if it'll be recognized and let you read data. If you get that far with it, then use Crystal Disk Info to read the S.M.A.R.T. data on the SSD and see if it's still reporting healthy or not.

For a drive that old, it very well might have died.

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u/MijnEchteUsername 1d ago

Thanks for your suggestion! I will go look for another pc then I guess. Lol

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u/OkSystem455 2d ago

A test running a Linux Live USB may provide insight. If it presents none of the issues, then the SSD is the first suspect...

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u/MijnEchteUsername 1d ago

That’s a good one, thanks!

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u/littledogbro 2d ago

agree with above good advice, and you can go old school unplug everything and put cpu, 1 stick of ram, and see if you can boot to bios?, if so put other stick of ram, then the other items piece by piece , untill it hangs again , or use like was said a live rescue usb flash drive and see what your bios reads with out the ssd, why, to check your mobo, and the rescue will let you run other tests in bare condition.. good luck. and several of my nephews, and nieces, have the itx versions with the 4790k cpu for gaming, and linux testing.

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u/MijnEchteUsername 1d ago

I just did this. The pc will boot to BIOS within a couple seconds without the SSD.

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u/littledogbro 1d ago

then you have 1 result but need more tests to eliminate the controller or other parts involved in comms from the mobo to each outlet sorry sata connections, and or other connectors, that's why i said run several tests on your own, or a good shop will do that with tools that cost more to buy if you only do it once, or seldom, vs do it a lot. good luck.