SSD and SATA hardrives preventing PC from reaching POST

[weeean]

My build:
Asus TUF X570Plus MB
Ryzen 3900X
MSI 1080Ti
NVMe primary (can't remember the brand but no issues with this HD
Samsung SSD (no issues with this)
SanDisk Ultra II (dead)
WD 4TB SATA (dead)

Newish PC build, everything working fine, but I notice the SATA drive doesn't seem to show up all the time. Its an old drive so I copied over the important stuff and unplugged it.
A few months later I find that my SanDisk SSD (which I use exclusively for torrent downloads) was being 'weird'. Sometimes it would take ages to access, sometimes my Plex server would just die when trying to read from it. Shutting the PC down took ages, and I found that I couldn't get the PC to turn back on again 9 times out of 10 (I couldn't get any display on the monitor) - I needed to keep restarting (I didn't actually put 2 and 2 together and realise the SSD was causing the PC issues, its only in retrospect its obvious)
Looking inside I noticed the VGA light was on, so I re-seated it and it moved to the boot light - and I could now see that the PC wasn't getting past POST.

I tried stripping everything out, resetting the CMOS, removing the battery and got to a place where POST required keyboard input. Which I couldn't provide without finding a PS/2 keyboard. Thats another story though...

I eventually found the culprit to be my SanDisk. My PC just stayed stuck at "Press F2 or del to enter BOIS". Neither button did anything. Unplug the SSD and everything back to normal again.

I set up all my SATA pots as hotswap in the BIOS, booted into windows again and then plugged the SSD back in. Go to Disk Management and it just sits there doing nothing. Unplug the SSD and it displays the other hardrives immediately.

So...
Has anyone ever heard of two totally different hard drives - one SATA and one SSD failing so bad they prevent the computer from even getting past POST? - and if connected after windows is running, not being recognised at all and even making Disk Management just go into 'Connecting to Virtual Disk Service indefinitely'

Both drives when plugged into will totally prevent me from booting. The WD is probably ~3 years old, the SSD ~1

 

[Blaylock]

I have heard of a single drive preventing POST for sure, but for a pair of them dying at the same time is a bit wonky.

Bad SATA cables can cause some funky issues. Try replacing the cable with a new/different one. Also, if you have the ability, test the drives for virus' and malware. Torents are notorious for hiding these.

 

[weeean]

I plugged them both in to the power and SATA cable that one of the good HDs was using but no difference.
I was starting to suspect I’d got something dodgy in with a torrent but I have seemingly absolutely no way to access these drives. I can’t believe there is a virus that was able to bypass my checker (bitdefender) and brick the HD so bad I can’t even get past POST. Especially as it wasn’t instant. The drive was unstable for a bit, but still accessible

 

[Blaylock]

An infallible Anti-virus has yet to be created.

Some virus' are designed to delay the infection.

Linux is a fantastic OS for scanning infected drives. (<-- this is outside of my wheelhouse and others will need to chime in for help with this )


ALSO, there may be other explanations besides malware/virus. But it's a starting point.

 

[knoober]

If you want to try Linux, I suggest Ubuntu for ease of use. There are plenty of instructions for how to make a live USB stick ( a live environment that does not change your current fs structure). After you make and boot from the live environment, you can a) check to see if the drives are recognized at all
b) scan for errors and viruses
C) backup and reformat the drive if necessary

If you want to go down that road, I'm sure I can toss up some links to instructions if you can't find any or need explanations