Reported problem: "My machine won't boot. It hangs on the Windows splash screen forever."
Grab the machine, bring it to my desk, start it up in safe mode: Works, but slowly.
Reboot in self-repair mode: Detects problems with booting, determines that there's nothing to repair.
Reboot into normal mode and go for lunch: Machine has completed booting normally by the time I get back. Log in, notice incredible slowness, check event viewer and resource manager: Hard disk access time is incredibly slow, ATAPI errors.
Most likely problem: loose or bad SATA cable. So I go to pop the case open and discover....
#1: The case has been disassembled and reassembled poorly, jamming one of the sides and requiring a lever to get loose.
#2: The sides are on BACKWARDS, meaning there's no vent for the CPU fan.
#3: Filled with fucking dust because duh.
#4: Lying on the motherboard: A screwdriver, four screws, a grounding strap, and a SATA cable disconnected from everything.
#5: HDD cable is loose.
Blow for dust, reconnect SATA cable, reassemble case CORRECTLY, add LOCK to case, everything works.
But seriously. Who thinks "gee, I will just leave a screwdriver in my computer?"
(User is a hardware nerd who occasionally needs to plug something SATA into his machine for work. I have pointed out that his machine has an EXTERNAL sata port for exactly this reason.)
Grab the machine, bring it to my desk, start it up in safe mode: Works, but slowly.
Reboot in self-repair mode: Detects problems with booting, determines that there's nothing to repair.
Reboot into normal mode and go for lunch: Machine has completed booting normally by the time I get back. Log in, notice incredible slowness, check event viewer and resource manager: Hard disk access time is incredibly slow, ATAPI errors.
Most likely problem: loose or bad SATA cable. So I go to pop the case open and discover....
#1: The case has been disassembled and reassembled poorly, jamming one of the sides and requiring a lever to get loose.
#2: The sides are on BACKWARDS, meaning there's no vent for the CPU fan.
#3: Filled with fucking dust because duh.
#4: Lying on the motherboard: A screwdriver, four screws, a grounding strap, and a SATA cable disconnected from everything.
#5: HDD cable is loose.
Blow for dust, reconnect SATA cable, reassemble case CORRECTLY, add LOCK to case, everything works.
But seriously. Who thinks "gee, I will just leave a screwdriver in my computer?"
(User is a hardware nerd who occasionally needs to plug something SATA into his machine for work. I have pointed out that his machine has an EXTERNAL sata port for exactly this reason.)
