Boot problem/question

I purchased a 300G USB drive. After hibernating, if I don't disconnect the
USB, the computer won't boot. Once I reboot, it sits there with a flashing
cursor in the top left corner. My boot options are set to this, in this
order:
Onboard or USB CD-Rom
Onboard or USB Floppy
Onboard SATA.
USB Device not present. I tried toggling between on and off for this and
leaving it off but it still hangs on the boot-up.

Any thoughts because it's a pain to have to keep plugging and unplugging the
USB. The tower sits on the floor and the USB connector is at the bottom of
the tower.

You need to change the boot priority to boot from the HDD first, or the CD
first and the HDD second. If these sources are not bootable, then look to
the USB. You do not need the floppy drive in the mix at all because as a
practical matter, there is no such thing as a bootable floppy anymore. In
theory, there could be a few people out there running a very old OS that can
boot from a floppy, but if you have a machine that supports a SATA drive,
then booting from a floop isn't realisticaly going to happen.

First Boot -- CD
Second Boot -- HDD
Third Boot -- USB

If the USB is a boot device ahead of the HDD, but hasn't got a boot sector,
then the machine will hang looking for something it will never be able to
find. I'm not certain, but if the CD is not bootable and is in front of the
HDD, you might have trouble waking the machine from Hibernation too -- if
the CD is occupied but the disc is not bootable. You can eject the CD tray
if the machine is trying to boot from it, and then it will go to the HDD for
boot information.

My machine is set to boot in the following order, CD, HDD, USB. You can drop
the USB device from the boot order if you haven't got any bootable USB
devices -- which covers the majority of the populatiion. The vast majority
of users will only boot to the HDD, unless the HDD goes into failure mode.
If this happens, we will boot to a CD so that we can make repairs to the OS.
It is a specialty user that will boot to a USB drive.



"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbr8s$c5j$email@anonym...
I purchased a 300G USB drive. After hibernating, if I don't disconnect the
USB, the computer won't boot. Once I reboot, it sits there with a flashing
cursor in the top left corner. My boot options are set to this, in this
order:
Onboard or USB CD-Rom
Onboard or USB Floppy
Onboard SATA.
USB Device not present. I tried toggling between on and off for this and
leaving it off but it still hangs on the boot-up.

Any thoughts because it's a pain to have to keep plugging and unplugging
the USB. The tower sits on the floor and the USB connector is at the
bottom of the tower.

"JD" <No.Reply@Sorry.com> wrote in message
news:4b2973a1$0$2492$email@anonym...
Joe J. wrote:
I purchased a 300G USB drive. After hibernating, if I don't disconnect
the USB, the computer won't boot. Once I reboot, it sits there with a
flashing cursor in the top left corner. My boot options are set to this,
in this order:
Onboard or USB CD-Rom
Onboard or USB Floppy
Onboard SATA.
USB Device not present. I tried toggling between on and off for this and
leaving it off but it still hangs on the boot-up.

Any thoughts because it's a pain to have to keep plugging and unplugging
the USB. The tower sits on the floor and the USB connector is at the
bottom of the tower.

Hi Joe

Does your PC have the same issue when you do a standard shutdown and
restart?, I've sen some USB devices that cause the POST to hang, for
instance I had the same issue with a Razer Copperhead USB mouse, to fix it
I had to flash my Board with the latest Firmware (BIOS)

Check whether or not your PC does the same thing on a normal shutdown if
it does, try Disabling Boot from other devices, also check your
Motherboard manufacturer's website for an update (WARNING flashing your
mainboard can be hazardous for its health, if you do it wrong!!)

Its also helpful to know the make of your USB device, type of mainboard
and the operating system.

JD

Tried a full shutdown and get the same thing, it hangs.
USB is a Simpletech 320G
Where would I find disable boot from other devices? It's not an option in
the boot sequence language.
It's a Dell 4700, running XP. Bios is AO5 I have no idea where to find
type of mainboard.

Joe

It probably doesn't make a difference having the floppy in the mix, but
there's no benefit of having it there.

But the USB is there, but it's not bootable, you need to move it down the
list so the bootable devices come first. MY BAD, I did not read that
properly.

You said, "onboard or USB <device>" where you listed two different USB
devices that are not the USB external drive, but are USB drives --
potentially. If you have an option for the two drives to be onboard only,
then you should see if selecting that option (onboard only) fixes the
problem.

We had a discussion a few days ago about a guy that had USB external drives
that he didn't want to unplug because the cable was in the back of the tower
and difficult to get to. My suggestion was to leave the cable in the back of
the PC and unplug it from the external drive when not in use.

I can't help but think you could do this also.

My wife uses an external 500G Maxtor that has it's own power supply, and she
leaves it plugged in all of the time and never has a problem with the boot
sequence or the wake-up sequence that comes from moving the mouse or hitting
the keyboard. She also has a FreeAgent (250G Seagate drive) that runs off of
the USB power. I don't recall her complaining that it causes her any
problems with coming out of hibernation or boot problems.

From what you've said here, I think you have USB included in the boot order
ahead of the actual bootable device, and this is causing you problems
because the USB drive is present but not a bootable device. My wife runs,
more or less, the same stuff you are running, but does not have the trouble
you are having. She's using XP Pro, SP3, and has a pretty new motherboard
that allows USB to boot. I set that option off or put it after the HDD so it
doesn't get in the way.

The Mrs. uses a USB extension cord from the back of her machine to her
desktop, then plugs in the device she wants -- camera, external drive, iPod,
etc. -- when she wants them. She does not have to pull her machine out to
unplug anything from the back because she moved one of the ports from the
back of the PC up to her desk. The machine doesn't care that the cord is
connected at the back if the load on the other end of the cable is taken
away then the port is unused and the machine is happy. A friend of mine
bought a 7-port USB hub last week. She plugs it into her laptop that she
uses as a desktop machine -- external monitor and keyboard -- that she can
separate from everything and take to school. The hub lets her plug her stuff
into the laptop at a single port, which makes disconnecting the laptop quick
and easy.

It sounds as if you could use such a device so that your USB devices can be
added and taken away more easily than you can do this now.

The hub my friend bought has it's own power supply so the power draw on the
machine isn't an issue.





"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbsp2$oel$email@anonym...
My USB is not enabled on boot. I don't see how having the floppy in the
sequence would make a difference since there is no disk in it.

Joe


"Jeff Strickland" <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbs88$jk7$email@anonym...
You need to change the boot priority to boot from the HDD first, or the
CD first and the HDD second. If these sources are not bootable, then look
to the USB. You do not need the floppy drive in the mix at all because as
a practical matter, there is no such thing as a bootable floppy anymore.
In theory, there could be a few people out there running a very old OS
that can boot from a floppy, but if you have a machine that supports a
SATA drive, then booting from a floop isn't realisticaly going to happen.

First Boot -- CD
Second Boot -- HDD
Third Boot -- USB

If the USB is a boot device ahead of the HDD, but hasn't got a boot
sector, then the machine will hang looking for something it will never be
able to find. I'm not certain, but if the CD is not bootable and is in
front of the HDD, you might have trouble waking the machine from
Hibernation too -- if the CD is occupied but the disc is not bootable.
You can eject the CD tray if the machine is trying to boot from it, and
then it will go to the HDD for boot information.

My machine is set to boot in the following order, CD, HDD, USB. You can
drop the USB device from the boot order if you haven't got any bootable
USB devices -- which covers the majority of the populatiion. The vast
majority of users will only boot to the HDD, unless the HDD goes into
failure mode. If this happens, we will boot to a CD so that we can make
repairs to the OS. It is a specialty user that will boot to a USB drive.



"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbr8s$c5j$email@anonym...
I purchased a 300G USB drive. After hibernating, if I don't disconnect
the USB, the computer won't boot. Once I reboot, it sits there with a
flashing cursor in the top left corner. My boot options are set to this,
in this order:
Onboard or USB CD-Rom
Onboard or USB Floppy
Onboard SATA.
USB Device not present. I tried toggling between on and off for this
and leaving it off but it still hangs on the boot-up.

Any thoughts because it's a pain to have to keep plugging and unplugging
the USB. The tower sits on the floor and the USB connector is at the
bottom of the tower.

Then you have to remove the USB device that the machine is finding.

The external drive is not the problem. The machine is looking to it for
bootable information that does not exist. You have to either make the
machine stop looking, or remove what it finds so that it looks elsewhere for
what it needs.




"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgc2f2$bbr$email@anonym...
There is no way to remove the USB from the boot sequence. My two options
are to enable it, or disable it. It is disabled and fourth in the
sequence list. The list is numbered. Items 1-3 are the devices I listed.
If I enable the USB it is automatically assigned #4 and becomes 4th in the
boot sequence. If I disable it, the assigned number goes away but it
still remains in the list. I can move the devices up and down in the list
and the numbers change accordingly. If I disable it and also move it up
in the list, the list numbering just skips it.

Joe


"Jeff Strickland" <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbvru$mb9$email@anonym...
It probably doesn't make a difference having the floppy in the mix, but
there's no benefit of having it there.

But the USB is there, but it's not bootable, you need to move it down the
list so the bootable devices come first. MY BAD, I did not read that
properly.

You said, "onboard or USB <device>" where you listed two different USB
devices that are not the USB external drive, but are USB drives --
potentially. If you have an option for the two drives to be onboard only,
then you should see if selecting that option (onboard only) fixes the
problem.

We had a discussion a few days ago about a guy that had USB external
drives that he didn't want to unplug because the cable was in the back of
the tower and difficult to get to. My suggestion was to leave the cable
in the back of the PC and unplug it from the external drive when not in
use.

I can't help but think you could do this also.

My wife uses an external 500G Maxtor that has it's own power supply, and
she leaves it plugged in all of the time and never has a problem with the
boot sequence or the wake-up sequence that comes from moving the mouse or
hitting the keyboard. She also has a FreeAgent (250G Seagate drive) that
runs off of the USB power. I don't recall her complaining that it causes
her any problems with coming out of hibernation or boot problems.

From what you've said here, I think you have USB included in the boot
order ahead of the actual bootable device, and this is causing you
problems because the USB drive is present but not a bootable device. My
wife runs, more or less, the same stuff you are running, but does not
have the trouble you are having. She's using XP Pro, SP3, and has a
pretty new motherboard that allows USB to boot. I set that option off or
put it after the HDD so it doesn't get in the way.

The Mrs. uses a USB extension cord from the back of her machine to her
desktop, then plugs in the device she wants -- camera, external drive,
iPod, etc. -- when she wants them. She does not have to pull her machine
out to unplug anything from the back because she moved one of the ports
from the back of the PC up to her desk. The machine doesn't care that the
cord is connected at the back if the load on the other end of the cable
is taken away then the port is unused and the machine is happy. A friend
of mine bought a 7-port USB hub last week. She plugs it into her laptop
that she uses as a desktop machine -- external monitor and keyboard --
that she can separate from everything and take to school. The hub lets
her plug her stuff into the laptop at a single port, which makes
disconnecting the laptop quick and easy.

It sounds as if you could use such a device so that your USB devices can
be added and taken away more easily than you can do this now.

The hub my friend bought has it's own power supply so the power draw on
the machine isn't an issue.





"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbsp2$oel$email@anonym...
My USB is not enabled on boot. I don't see how having the floppy in the
sequence would make a difference since there is no disk in it.

Joe


"Jeff Strickland" <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbs88$jk7$email@anonym...
You need to change the boot priority to boot from the HDD first, or the
CD first and the HDD second. If these sources are not bootable, then
look to the USB. You do not need the floppy drive in the mix at all
because as a practical matter, there is no such thing as a bootable
floppy anymore. In theory, there could be a few people out there
running a very old OS that can boot from a floppy, but if you have a
machine that supports a SATA drive, then booting from a floop isn't
realisticaly going to happen.

First Boot -- CD
Second Boot -- HDD
Third Boot -- USB

If the USB is a boot device ahead of the HDD, but hasn't got a boot
sector, then the machine will hang looking for something it will never
be able to find. I'm not certain, but if the CD is not bootable and is
in front of the HDD, you might have trouble waking the machine from
Hibernation too -- if the CD is occupied but the disc is not bootable.
You can eject the CD tray if the machine is trying to boot from it, and
then it will go to the HDD for boot information.

My machine is set to boot in the following order, CD, HDD, USB. You can
drop the USB device from the boot order if you haven't got any bootable
USB devices -- which covers the majority of the populatiion. The vast
majority of users will only boot to the HDD, unless the HDD goes into
failure mode. If this happens, we will boot to a CD so that we can make
repairs to the OS. It is a specialty user that will boot to a USB
drive.



"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbr8s$c5j$email@anonym...
I purchased a 300G USB drive. After hibernating, if I don't disconnect
the USB, the computer won't boot. Once I reboot, it sits there with a
flashing cursor in the top left corner. My boot options are set to
this, in this order:
Onboard or USB CD-Rom
Onboard or USB Floppy
Onboard SATA.
USB Device not present. I tried toggling between on and off for this
and leaving it off but it still hangs on the boot-up.

Any thoughts because it's a pain to have to keep plugging and
unplugging the USB. The tower sits on the floor and the USB connector
is at the bottom of the tower.

The machine is looking to the USB drive for bootable information. You must
physically remove that drive, or prevent the machine from looking for it.




"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgc6gk$9ok$email@anonym...

"Jeff Strickland" <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgc69u$8t3$email@anonym...
Then you have to remove the USB device that the machine is finding.

The external drive is not the problem. The machine is looking to it for
bootable information that does not exist. You have to either make the
machine stop looking, or remove what it finds so that it looks elsewhere
for what it needs.

There are no other USB devices.

Joe




"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgc2f2$bbr$email@anonym...
There is no way to remove the USB from the boot sequence. My two
options are to enable it, or disable it. It is disabled and fourth in
the sequence list. The list is numbered. Items 1-3 are the devices I
listed. If I enable the USB it is automatically assigned #4 and becomes
4th in the boot sequence. If I disable it, the assigned number goes
away but it still remains in the list. I can move the devices up and
down in the list and the numbers change accordingly. If I disable it
and also move it up in the list, the list numbering just skips it.

Joe


"Jeff Strickland" <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbvru$mb9$email@anonym...
It probably doesn't make a difference having the floppy in the mix, but
there's no benefit of having it there.

But the USB is there, but it's not bootable, you need to move it down
the list so the bootable devices come first. MY BAD, I did not read
that properly.

You said, "onboard or USB <device>" where you listed two different USB
devices that are not the USB external drive, but are USB drives --
potentially. If you have an option for the two drives to be onboard
only, then you should see if selecting that option (onboard only) fixes
the problem.

We had a discussion a few days ago about a guy that had USB external
drives that he didn't want to unplug because the cable was in the back
of the tower and difficult to get to. My suggestion was to leave the
cable in the back of the PC and unplug it from the external drive when
not in use.

I can't help but think you could do this also.

My wife uses an external 500G Maxtor that has it's own power supply,
and she leaves it plugged in all of the time and never has a problem
with the boot sequence or the wake-up sequence that comes from moving
the mouse or hitting the keyboard. She also has a FreeAgent (250G
Seagate drive) that runs off of the USB power. I don't recall her
complaining that it causes her any problems with coming out of
hibernation or boot problems.

From what you've said here, I think you have USB included in the boot
order ahead of the actual bootable device, and this is causing you
problems because the USB drive is present but not a bootable device. My
wife runs, more or less, the same stuff you are running, but does not
have the trouble you are having. She's using XP Pro, SP3, and has a
pretty new motherboard that allows USB to boot. I set that option off
or put it after the HDD so it doesn't get in the way.

The Mrs. uses a USB extension cord from the back of her machine to her
desktop, then plugs in the device she wants -- camera, external drive,
iPod, etc. -- when she wants them. She does not have to pull her
machine out to unplug anything from the back because she moved one of
the ports from the back of the PC up to her desk. The machine doesn't
care that the cord is connected at the back if the load on the other
end of the cable is taken away then the port is unused and the machine
is happy. A friend of mine bought a 7-port USB hub last week. She plugs
it into her laptop that she uses as a desktop machine -- external
monitor and keyboard -- that she can separate from everything and take
to school. The hub lets her plug her stuff into the laptop at a single
port, which makes disconnecting the laptop quick and easy.

It sounds as if you could use such a device so that your USB devices
can be added and taken away more easily than you can do this now.

The hub my friend bought has it's own power supply so the power draw on
the machine isn't an issue.





"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbsp2$oel$email@anonym...
My USB is not enabled on boot. I don't see how having the floppy in
the sequence would make a difference since there is no disk in it.

Joe


"Jeff Strickland" <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbs88$jk7$email@anonym...
You need to change the boot priority to boot from the HDD first, or
the CD first and the HDD second. If these sources are not bootable,
then look to the USB. You do not need the floppy drive in the mix at
all because as a practical matter, there is no such thing as a
bootable floppy anymore. In theory, there could be a few people out
there running a very old OS that can boot from a floppy, but if you
have a machine that supports a SATA drive, then booting from a floop
isn't realisticaly going to happen.

First Boot -- CD
Second Boot -- HDD
Third Boot -- USB

If the USB is a boot device ahead of the HDD, but hasn't got a boot
sector, then the machine will hang looking for something it will
never be able to find. I'm not certain, but if the CD is not bootable
and is in front of the HDD, you might have trouble waking the machine
from Hibernation too -- if the CD is occupied but the disc is not
bootable. You can eject the CD tray if the machine is trying to boot
from it, and then it will go to the HDD for boot information.

My machine is set to boot in the following order, CD, HDD, USB. You
can drop the USB device from the boot order if you haven't got any
bootable USB devices -- which covers the majority of the populatiion.
The vast majority of users will only boot to the HDD, unless the HDD
goes into failure mode. If this happens, we will boot to a CD so that
we can make repairs to the OS. It is a specialty user that will boot
to a USB drive.



"Joe J." <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgbr8s$c5j$email@anonym...
>I purchased a 300G USB drive. After hibernating, if I don't
>disconnect the USB, the computer won't boot. Once I reboot, it sits
>there with a flashing cursor in the top left corner. My boot options
>are set to this, in this order:
> Onboard or USB CD-Rom
> Onboard or USB Floppy
> Onboard SATA.
> USB Device not present. I tried toggling between on and off for
> this and leaving it off but it still hangs on the boot-up.
>
> Any thoughts because it's a pain to have to keep plugging and
> unplugging the USB. The tower sits on the floor and the USB
> connector is at the bottom of the tower.
>

"Paul" <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgcp71$uk2$email@anonym...
Joe J. wrote:
"Jeff Strickland" <email@anonym; wrote in message
news:hgc69u$8t3$email@anonym...
Then you have to remove the USB device that the machine is finding.

The external drive is not the problem. The machine is looking to it for
bootable information that does not exist. You have to either make the
machine stop looking, or remove what it finds so that it looks elsewhere
for what it needs.

There are no other USB devices.

Joe


This is just a curiosity question. Does the external USB happen to
have the boot flag set on a data only partition ?

You can use this tool, to check the partition table on your drives.
I think it works on USB drives, so while you're in Windows, run
this and see whether the boot flag is set. Maybe the BIOS is
"more interested", if it checks the partition and finds a
boot flag.

PTEDIT32 for Windows

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip

PTEDIT32 screenshot

http://www.vistax64.com/attachments/vista-installation-setup/7308d1224108918-hidden-partiton-recovery-dell-xps-420-dell-tbl.gif

HTH,
Paul

Were getting a bit over my head now but running PTEDIT it shows
Type Boot
1. 07 00
2. 00 00
3. 00 00
4. 00 00

The drive is not partitioned.

Joe

"JD" <No.Reply@Sorry.com> wrote in message
news:4b2a7f37$0$2491$email@anonym...
Joe J. wrote:
"JD" <No.Reply@Sorry.com> wrote in message
news:4b2973a1$0$2492$email@anonym...
Joe J. wrote:
I purchased a 300G USB drive. After hibernating, if I don't disconnect
the USB, the computer won't boot. Once I reboot, it sits there with a
flashing cursor in the top left corner. My boot options are set to
this, in this order:
Onboard or USB CD-Rom
Onboard or USB Floppy
Onboard SATA.
USB Device not present. I tried toggling between on and off for this
and leaving it off but it still hangs on the boot-up.

Any thoughts because it's a pain to have to keep plugging and
unplugging the USB. The tower sits on the floor and the USB connector
is at the bottom of the tower.
Hi Joe

Does your PC have the same issue when you do a standard shutdown and
restart?, I've sen some USB devices that cause the POST to hang, for
instance I had the same issue with a Razer Copperhead USB mouse, to fix
it I had to flash my Board with the latest Firmware (BIOS)

Check whether or not your PC does the same thing on a normal shutdown if
it does, try Disabling Boot from other devices, also check your
Motherboard manufacturer's website for an update (WARNING flashing your
mainboard can be hazardous for its health, if you do it wrong!!)

Its also helpful to know the make of your USB device, type of mainboard
and the operating system.

JD

Tried a full shutdown and get the same thing, it hangs.
USB is a Simpletech 320G
Where would I find disable boot from other devices? It's not an option
in the boot sequence language.
It's a Dell 4700, running XP. Bios is AO5 I have no idea where to find
type of mainboard.

Joe

Hi again Joe

Did a quick search on the dell website there is a BIOS update for your
computer, Dimension 4700 and on the info it does mention improved USB
support.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&ln&s=gen&releaseid=R115122&SystemIDIM_P4_4700&servicetag=&os=WW1&osln&deviceid08&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt&libid&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid51799

You mentioned that your older computer does not have the same problem, its
one of those strange hardware configuration things I suspect, with the
example I gave The usb mouse; it worked fine on every other computer
except my main machine, which was a bios issue.

if you decide to upgrade your BIOS read the documentation properly before
you start, as you can turn your pc into a brick if you do it wrong.

JD

Thank you very much JD!!

Joe