Hi. This problem occurs because windows exposes a BIOS bug.

Some computer BIOS versions have the ability to boot from
external devices. What this means is you have the capability to
boot from an external USB or an external firewire disk-device
that is running at boot.

How this works is the BIOS assigns the external disk-device a
lower Drive Letter than the partitions on the internal disk. As a
result, when starting with the external disk or USB connected,
control is passed to the Boot Sector on the external device,
rather than the Boot Sector on the internal hard disk.

If the Boot Sector on the external device is not active (and it
should NOT be active for a non-OS partition), then the
machine will stall at that point because it cannot continue the
boot process unless an active partition is present.


There are three solutions to this problem:

1. Check to see if a BIOS update is available for your system.
Many times, the above is an oversight on the part of the
BIOS manufacturer. The BIOS logic should recognize the
external device has no boot loader available and set the
system so the internal device with the active boot partition
is used for the boot process.

2. Check to ensure your CMOS settings are correct for the
BIOS on your computer. Some BIOS versions allow you
to enable/disable the external USB/FW device boot feature
or modify the detection parameters for this process.

3. Ensure the firmware in your external USB or Firewire
device is up-to-date. The BIOS detection process for
boot/non-boot capability depends on a valid handshake
between the motherboard BIOS and the USB/FW
firmware. Bugs here can also be part of the problem.


Note: If none of the above solutions work, then your
computer motherboard manufacturer or your
USB/FW device manufacturer has decided
to ignore this problem. At that point, you have
to decide whether you are going to live with the
problem - or you are going to nuke the company
headquarters from orbit as the only valid response
to pissing you off. <grin>


Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill



paul wrote:
> Please help.
>
> I have 2 Identical computers. One which had the WD Firewire my book
> attached and turned on all the time sp3 was installed has no problems
> re booting. The other which had the WD drive off during the sp3
> installation will not reboot if it is later on at the time of the
> boot. Once xp up and running WD drive can be attached as normal but
> must be off for boot ups. Uninstalling and re installing sp3 with it
> on doesn't help still won't re boot with it on.