Hard Drive Boot Problems
The most often-encountered cause of system failure is a faulty hard drive. Nonoperational hard drives usually present a problem with a computer booting to its respective operating system. There are many reasons why a drive may fail to properly boot, ranging from improper settings to complete mechanical failure.
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Time Frame
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Though hard drives manufactured by mainstream manufacturers usually have top-notch design and component quality, the fact remains they are mechanical devices with high-speed moving parts that are in constant action. Like all other mechanic devices, hard drives are prone to eventual mechanical failure. Most often, it is the Read/Write head's armature that has becomes damaged and that prevents it from reading the boot table and operating system files. In the case of a mechanical failure, there is no easy remedy for saving data or repairing the drive.
System Configuration
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There are two possible causes for why a newly installed drive won't boot, outside of it being a defective unit. First, the system Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) may not be properly set to boot from the hard drive, and it is searching flash drives, optical drives, or other hard drives. Second, the drive's data or power cables may not be seated or connected to the correct drive channel on the motherboard.
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Data Corruption
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When a system boots from the hard drive, it first searches for the master boot record on the system drive to see which operating systems are installed at which drive locations. If this master boot record has been changed or logically compromised by data corruption, the drive will not boot. The only way to fix this is to reinstall all operating systems in order to overwrite and re-create the master boot record.
Malware and Viruses
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Malicious software and viruses can change a hard drive's boot files in such a way that booting will be incomplete or impossible. In the case of malware, the only recourse is to run an off-line boot disc and perform a virus scan in Disk Operating System (DOS) mode. An operating system reinstall may be required, depending on the extent of the damage.
Misconceptions
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Inoperable systems are often the result of a hard drive failure as opposed to a more expensive system device. A total mechanical failure can result in immediate system shutdown, or refusal to make it past a post screen. The consensus is to test it by simply swapping out the hard drive to see if it's that or another system component that's failing.
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