External Harddrive won't let POST complete

Question

I have a Fantom Drives GF3B2000U external hard-drive. USB 3.0. My problem is that if it is plugged in and powered on when I start the computer, it won't get past post. The bios is `v2.58 (C) Copytright 1985-2007, American Megatrends, Inc. Also, the operating system is Windows XP, probably SP3.

Auto-detection USB Mass Storage Devices
Device #01: 

Those are the last two lines on the screen and there it freezes.

• Disabling USB is not an option as the keyboard is USB.
• I tried setting legacy support to Auto, nothing happened.
• I can't change the boot order, as each individual device is listed, and if it freezes before it enters setup. However, the CD drive and Harddrive are listed as the first two.

Ok, here's the text from power on. Does this help any?

|AMI |   American
|LOGO|   Megatrends

AMIBIOS (C) 2007 American Megatrends, Inc.
ASUS P5GC-MX/1333 ACPI BIOS Revision 0310
CPU : Intel (R) Celeron (R) CPU E1200 @ 1.60 GHz
 Speed : 1.60 GHz      Count : 2

Press DEL to run Setup
Press F8 for BBS POPUP
PC2-5300 Dual Channel Interleaved
Checking NVRAM..
Initializing USB controllers .. Done.
2040MB OK
USB Device(s): 2 Keyboards, 1 Mouse, 1 Storage Device
... [Some stuff about the IDE devices] ...
Auto-detection USB Mass Storage Devices
Device #01 : 

If I press DEL, then it changes that line to

Entering SETUP ...

Answer 1

Had this all the time. Upon cold boot, system would hang prior to Windows boot. Reboot a couple of times and it would eventually complete POST and boot or unplug the external and it would boot with no problems.

In my BIOS, I went into the area which shows what drives are potential boot devices. It had all the external USB devices, internal drives, CD drives... was listing the primary as my CD/DVD, secondary as the HDD, tertiary as USB devices... Removed every device except the primary hard drive. Rebooted and haven't had a problem since.

Figure if I ever need to boot from CD/DVD or something else, I can always re-enable.

Answer 2

Maybe the problem is related to controller not being able to recognize the drive's Plug and Play ID.

Here is an excerpt of the same question asked in an intel-forum:

ROBLEM: IF I have an external drive plugged into any USB 3.0 port (front or rear panel) the system will hang at the opening Intel splash screen, on restarts or cold boots. Unplugging the external USB 3 drive allows the system to (re)start and boot into OS perfectly. I've already set boot priority to place internal C-drive as first boot device ... no fix. I've disabled "boot from USB" option in BIOS ... no fix. Further, it doesn't appear to matter what brand or size of external USB 3 drive is plugged into the system, as I experience the same problem with several different manufacturer's drives. I have seen MANY similar problems posted on the internet associated with different brands of mobo's and different brands of devices / controllers ... yet I have NOT seen any definitive FIX to the problem. The suggestion of disabling USB Legacy Support is unacceptable and would leave me with no USB KB or mouse at startup ... and this suggestion has yet to be proven effective. The suggestion to simply wait until after you boot the computer to plug in the external drive is also unacceptable. DOES ANYONE KNOW OF A REAL SOLUTION to this problem? Any thoughts or constructive comments would be most appreciated. - Dan ([email protected])

with this answer:

Victor_Intel Apr 5, 2013 4:45 PM

Hello Dan, Currently the issue is related to the controller not able to recognized the drives Plug and Play ID during POST so the BIOS freezes trying to recognize it. The issue is reported and we are working on the solution. I will like to congratulate you because you are one of the few that will check the release notes to know if the BIOS update will fix the issue that you are experiencing and if its worth to take the risk to update it for only having the newest. I encourage you to keep checking the release notes until a fix is released and when you do update the BIOS, remember to do it in steps, do not jump to the latest version directly and I try using the recovery method. Regards.

Answer taken form this site: https://communities.intel.com/thread/38705

Answer 3

From my comment to the question: I tried disabling legacy support and it looks like that took care of it. And my keyboard still works, which is nice.

Answer 4

I've noticed this on multiple systems with multiple drives. If I left my iPod connected to an Asus netbook I had, it would do the same thing, for example.

I generally suspect the BIOS/UEFI in this scenario given the historically funny nature of PC firmware over the years.

Try updating your BIOS or PC's firmware.

Also, if you don't need to boot off of a USB device, you can try disabling any USB-related boot options on your system. - I see it would not likely help you after rereading your question.

Of course if other drives don't do this, then it's something in the drive. No recourse really except to exchange the drive.

Answer 5

Is your external drive over 1 terabyte in capacity ? It is possible the "bridge", part of the USB enclosure, is presenting 4,096-byte sectors while your BIOS expects 512 byte sectors /only/.

If this is the case unfortunately, there is no workaround and you won't be able to boot from the device unless a BIOS upgrade solves the compatibility.

The is no problem when using such a device in Windows XP and later, nor most recent enough Linux kernels. But you won't be able to BOOT from it, you have to install the OS, at least the boot (system) partition, on a fixed drive or an older, lesser capacity external HD with 512 byte sectors (through the SATA-USB bridge)