Concerning the external drive, I doubt that it will be the boot ini..

Since
Which is a clear indicator that there is something borked in the bios or the bios does not support external drives. :hmmm:

All of my discs are buried somewhere in storage. :cry:

One thing has changed by itself: Yesterday I had to unplug the external drive and then use the boot screen to start it. Today I still have to unplug the cable but for some reason when I do it starts without help. :-?

Anything new Steve ?

After reading about your problem its put me of external drives. :o

Don't do any of the below unless your certain its the boot.ini

If its your boot.ini that corrupt your have to do a repair using your OS cd, load up the cd when it gets to the blue menu and gives you a couple of options choose R (recovery console) after it goes through its stages, type 'bootcfg /rebuild' and hit enter. it will ask you to identify so you type windows home edition and hit enter.

If your lucky the boot.ini will be fix and your at least be able to get back into windows.


On another note.
Ubuntu got my pc out of a mess. Windows xp pro came up corrupt on startup, not even the repair would fix the boot.ini I was locked out of windows so i gave up and install Ubuntu so at the very least i could access the windows drive from ubuntu OS and backup all my important files to dvd, then reformat damn Windows and reinstall. But installing Ubuntu it fixed the problem cause Linux installs its own boot menu so you can choose either windows or Linux on startup. To my surprise there was WindowsXP alongside Ubuntu 9.10. I was able to get back into windows without having to reformat and start again.

Can't fix the bootup in windows, don't want to reformat, use ubuntu as the last resort. And its a good OS to use :)

Me thinks you need to take a trip to storage and get all your software. :hmmm:

Shouldn't. I was sold on the idea after listening to Kim Komando on NPR. She said the main benefit is in case of fire. You can replace your computer, but you can't replace all your work. The external can go out a window and be pretty much guaranteed to survive intact.

As I said, if I unplug the drive before startup I have no problems now. I just wonder why it stopped recognizing the main drive (which still works fine, just doesn't show up in the Boot menu).


Which is why I bought the external drive in the first place. With a Terrabyte of storage ALL my files are stored outside the computer. Everything I have. And I've filled up a whopping 90 Gigs, so I have about 800 GB left to play with. I love it!

Oh, I absolutely agree. It's inside one of the 60+ boxes of books and stuff crammed into a 5 x 10 unit. Should only take a full day to pull everything out, look at each box and jam it all back in. Though I'm not sure I have the physical endurance to do something like that anymore.:dead::D

Though I'm not sure I have the physical endurance to do something like that anymore.:dead::D[/QUOTE]


Hire Emanual Labor for heavy lifting and toteing. :haha:

Got it sorted out ? If so, Post how you fixed it to help out others.

If not I have another fresh approach to solveing this that involves useing Task Manager.

Not.

It's not so much of a problem now that it boots by itself with the new drive unplugged, but it would be nice if I could get rid of that little annoyance.

Especially if your usb ports are all in the back of the case.

I have an old Puter I'm pulling out of the closet. Don't know why I ever kept it.

Maybe now's the reason.

P4 3.0 Hyperthread
2 gb ddr ram
7600GT 512gb
320gb hdd
XP Pro sp2

Gonna use my EXTERNAL hdd to see if I can recreat you problem and fixit.

Believe it or not. I call this FUN. :D

I have this same issue with a media player device.

It appears to be the device itself because if I move it from any machine to another machine and then try to boot that machine with the device plugged in it hangs at the bios screen and never even gets to the POST.

Simple solution is to unplug it and poof the machine takes off.

I think it has something to do with how it uses the V+/- of the USB buss.

@ Steve What do you have on the EX hdd ?

Did you put a Whole system backup on it ?

Fortunately I have two in front, so the hassle is now truly minor.

I would too, if I had a clue what I was doing. :doh:

No, I moved over all of My Documents and my personal Downloads folder. Program files and everything else is solely on the main drive.

When you say move... Did you move the files and delete same said files on Internal hdd.

Or did you just copy them to External hdd and leave originals on Internal hdd.

Deleted. I wanted to not have the main drive be full.