My Toshiba Satellite C850 is not booting when hard drive installed but will boot from CD or USB when hard drive removed

[Mrblazingmaniac]

I have tired low level formatting the hard drive, trying other hard drives, swapping ram and cmos battery but no matter what I try the laptop will not boot when there is a drive installed, as soon as I remove the hard drive the laptop will gladly boot from USB or CD but I cannot install an operating system without a hard drive installed.

 

[hang-the-9]

Could be a bad SATA connector.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Mrblazingmaniac,

I would agree with hang-the-9. In that case, you may need to take the laptop to a repair shop, or contact the place you got it from, if it is under warranty.

What does your boot order show? (BIOS) You can remove all other boot options, except for the USB.
I believe you can clear CMOS as well.

Let us know how this goes,
D_Know_WD

 

[Mrblazingmaniac]

Unfortunately the laptop is well out of it's warranty period. I've tried removing all options but USB from the boot order but it all the same result (stops on the Toshiba logo) so I think i'll strip it down and check the connections on the motherboard and maybe reset the BIOS if that doesn't do anything then at least I have some spare parts for any other similar laptops that come my way.