[otieatkins]

Good Morning,
I am having a problem with my PC. It will not boot up if I have my external HDD Enclosure holding 2 drives plugged into a USB port.
Is there any way to fix this?

Thanks, Dianne

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Hi, it could be a bios setting...system trying to boot from usb device.

What make & model is your comp.

[deggitt]

Hi, it could be a bios setting...system trying to boot from usb device.

What make & model is your comp.

[phillpower2]

Hi Dianne, sorry to hear you are having this issue.
Is the computer a laptop or a desktop + is this a new component or has the enclosure worked on the system previously?
You may need to go into the BIOS and check the boot sequence, if you need assistance with this I will be happy to help.

[Digerati]

Are you trying to boot to this external enclosure, or does this enclosure just contain drives used for data storage? Does the computer boot fine if the enclosure is not attached?

It could also be a bad external enclosure that is putting abnormal voltages or current demands on the USB port. Or a problem with the computer's USB interface.

[otieatkins]

Hi Everyone and thanks for getting back to me. I was out of the loop for awhile but am back now. My computer is an Alienware X86 Based PC. I have 4 GB RAM, a double processor with 3.6 mhz on each one. The computer is old, I bought it in 2005 and the BIOS is really old. It is BIOS American Megatrends Inc., Version 1005.003, Date 8/5/2004. I'm sure it needs to be updated but that's something I would never attempt myself because it scares the heck out of me, now, if I had help.....
The computer boots fine as long as the device is not plugged into it. If it is plugged in, the computer just hangs before it gets to the black pick windows screen (I only have 1 version of windows though), I have to unplug and reboot. Once up, I plug the USB for the device and everything is dandy! The device is just for storage. Just so you know, I have my internal boot disk that has 2 partitions, C drive (88 GB) and H drive (66 GB), Then a D drive thats a FAT32 MyBook 500 GB, Then a L drive, One Touch 4Plus that's a 950? GB, then on the problem device there is 2 drives, each having 2 partitions - The first being a P drive 473 GB and a R Drive 458 GB and the second drive is the S drive 341 GB and the T drive 1.03 TB.
I am plugging the device directly into the computer and not into a USB multi plug unit.
Any help will be deeply appreciated - this computer has to last at least another 10 years!!!

[Alzeimer]

I would follow what the others have said and check in your BIOS first what is your boot order.

It does sound like you have either removable device or usb device set as a boot device before your internal HD, so when you have them plugged in when your trying to boot it searches on your external HD for the boot record and since it does not find any it stops. When they are not plugged in BIOS jumps over them and searches for next boot device.

Floppy and CD/DVD rom will jump over if no bootable media is in them but for removable device it will only skip over it if none are connected if any connected it will not look for other boot devices.

So a good boot order is Internal HD first then CD/DVD / Floppy / Removable device.

Make the changes and be sure to save your new BIOS setting before rebooting.

[otieatkins]

Thanks so much for the advice. I'm going to try that and let you know. Dianne

[otieatkins]

Good Morning...
Your wonderful advice did not work... But, I don't think it's your advice, I think it's my PC. When I started this is what auto detects:
Auto detecting Pri Master CD-ROM
" " Slave "
" " 3rd Master IDE Hard Disk
" " USB Mass Storage
Device #01: WD 5000 AAJ External 1.6
" #02: This is where it hangs.............
Now I guess my question is, Where is my second device?
Also, and this is REALLY bazaar... None of my Windows Administrative Software is in my computer! One of my drives has the wrong letter assigned and I went to change it but have NO
software to do it???
What is going on??? Help!!!
Dianne

[phillpower2]

Try disconnecting the external HDDs, on booting up go into the BIOS (tap F8) and change the boot order to;
1: Master IDE Hard Disk
2: CD/DVD drive if you have 2 CD/DVD drives attached by a single IDE ribbon the 2nd drive will show as;
3: Slave.
Once you have done this save your settings (tap F10) and exit.
Restart your computer and check that it functions as it should, check for any updates, when you are done shut down your computer completely and attach the external HDDs and boot up as normal, allow Windows to detect the new hardware and install from there, hopefully this will resolve the issue and let us know how it goes.