Bill Drake wrote:
> 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
>
I have a similar problem in that my HP computer will hang during BiOS
loading if I have my camera SD card inserted. I can access the SD card
if I insert it after booting. Since I only view the card occasionally I
can easily live with this condition. I suppose I could look for a BiOS
update from HP, but it's just not worth the bother and/or risk.

Bill