The other day i was having trouble LOADING steam so i restarted my pc, but when it went to boot up it was stuck at the WINDOWS screen. after 10-15(even though its an ssd) minutes it finally brings up my desktop and has trouble loading just about anything. I came to the conclusion that my ssd must be failing so ordered a new one. it came in yesterday, so i slapped it in and grabbed my windows 10 usb(bought not home made) but its really slow as well, took forever to get to where i could click custom install. im on the volume select screen and i can see the new ssd on the list but my mouse is just an hourglass and i cant select anything. i do have a standard hdd that i use for storage, could that be whats failing and causing all the slowness?If you are skilled enough to "slap in" an SSD, you could certainly TRY disconnecting the hdd that you suspect.Hi

Yes to the question, the data drive could cause the slowness. Although i think 10 to 15 minutes is longer than I would expect a faulty hard drive to slow the computer. If you try loading windows with only the new ssd connected and see if it speeds the computer up. Then connect the data drive and test if it slows down. There is windows hard drive diagnostic tools you could run to confirm. The amount of time to boot suggests it it more likely failing power supply. A failing hard drive would slow boot by 2 to 3 minutes. Is the computer slow on other things like re installing windows ?

If there is an OS on the flakey drive that time delay is reasonable...So i popped out the data drive, left in the new ssd and put the old one back in and everything booted just fine. Its strange how that drive GOING bad could prevent windows install on a different drive in the pc. Backup and wipe the data drive and start over...PS> you never stated if it did have an OS on it...Good diagnoses, Well done

I would like to know how the data drive sounds with just the power applied. When the computer starts in this configuration listen to the drive does it start spinning click a few times and then keep spinning? or does the speed change and the drive keeps resetting the heads which is the clicking sound. If the drive is spinning down and resetting it could still be the 12v output on the power supply. Most Bios setups have a HEALTH page which shows the power supply voltages. So they are easy to check. If the 12 v output is less than 11.6 V then you should replace the power supply.