External drive causing strange problems.

DavidNW

DavidNW

Big Geek

Hello, everyone.

This afternoon, I closed down my PC and everything was fine. A couple of hours later, I booted it up and it hung with Windows saying that “Windows is starting up…” Well, Windows would not start up at all, even if I waited 10 minutes.

I tried several reboots and a couple of restores – all to no avail. I thought things were getting to the point when a fresh install of XP was on the cards. Just as a thought, I unhooked my external drive when I’d reached the abovementioned “Windows is starting up…” point. My PC immediately fully booted. Problem solved, I thought. Well, it was until I reconnected the external drive. I could then not get into Disk Management or Device Manager to try to rectify things

Update: the external drive has eventually showed up in "Disk Management" (as 'Healthy') and "My Computer", but when I try to access any of the files stored on it, I just get the ‘egg timer’ and no access no matter how long I wait.

Any help, as always, would be appreciated.


Thanks,

Dave.
 
I don't know what motherboard you have in that system, but you might want to check the manual for a USB standby voltage. It can either be toggled with a jumper on the motherboard or in BIOS. If it's available, it's usually disabled, so you might try disabling it.

Also, try using the external drive on another known good system.
 
Karanislove said:
Is it just happening with your USB Storage Device or with all the USB devices?
Click to expand...


Thanks, guys.

No, it's just the USB storage device. I'm starting to think I have bought yet another duff external drive (the first one got sent back because of failure, and now it's looking like this one has died as well). I'll try it on another system when I can, to see if it works.

Cheers,

Dave. :confused:
 
DavidNW said:
Thanks, guys.

No, it's just the USB storage device. I'm starting to think I have bought yet another duff external drive (the first one got sent back because of failure, and now it's looking like this one has died as well). I'll try it on another system when I can, to see if it works.

Cheers,

Dave. :confused:
Click to expand...

Well, I ‘retrieved’ the external disk when I thought all was lost. I had to use the "Add Hard Disk" tool in Acronis True Image 9.0 (the program I use for my disk-imaging). The program required the drive to be wiped for the process of course. Always a price to pay!

Still, no big deal, I only had a couple of P2P programs and a few insignificant documents on it.

I tried everything in “Disk management” - including trying a format; but the 'egg timer' just hung indefinitely. The disk-imaging program was the only option that worked and the only thing I could think of. All’s well that ends well, I guess.

Dave. :good:
 
donkey42 said:
check the USB cables first, try removing your external USB storage then see if your pc fully boots
Click to expand...


Yes, the external drive was the problem, when I removed it all was well and I was able to fully boot up. I've since reformatted the external drive, so all is well again.

Strange how the external drive would not let Windows fully boot; just one of those things, I guess. I can't figure it out, that's for sure!

Dave.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top