On Sept 29 I purchased a 1Tb My Book Essential. My OS is Windows XP Professional and any time I have the external powered on the system will NOT get past the screen where I can access the BIOS when I either do a restart or turn on. Is there ANY way to keep the external drive (which I use to back up my system) powered on at all times or will I ALWAYS have to have the power cord out UNTIL I actually log into the computer? This has been driving me crazy ever since I started using the WD drive.
Check the BIOS to see if USB drives are first in the boot order.
If so, change the bios to put USB devices AFTER the system drive, or disable it altogether.
The first thing I did in the BIOS BOOT section WAS to DISABLE the USB Boot.
The second thing was to verify the boot order. At the top of the list is [3M-ST 340014A] which IS my “C” drive. The next two I have no idea what their location is but they are listed as [IBA GE SLOT 0208 v1210] and [4m-LTN486S]. The fourth is the 1st floppy drive.
I then closed and saved the BIOS settings, shut down, powered up the WD drive and attempted to restart. It just sat at the screen with the BOOT and BIOS available for access. I didn’t let it stay there for very long before doing another shut down, unplugging the WD and restarting. It then restarted properly.
Any more ideas?
Thanks,
I had a similar problem with an old Asus motherboard. Disable the USB Legacy option in the BIOS and your problem should be resolved.
Your suggestion SEEMED to work. I went into Advanced:USB Configuration and disabled the Legacy USB Support, saved and exited and the start up went through to where the two logins on my system SHOULD come up. The mouse did show but my husband’s and my logins where I would input the password never appeared. I could move the mouse around the screen but nothing else I did mattered (such as hitting Enter) Should I have waited longer for these to appear? Or did what we did also disable the fact that my computer has two users? I have full Admin privileges and my husband is a Limited user (he’s completely computer illiterate).
yes please try waiting a bit longer
THAT DID IT!!! THANKS A BUNDLE
Your very welcome 
