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I have a USB Hard disk that I am using as a secondary drive just for extra storage.

When this is attached and I start my PC the second screen says searching for mass storage dives for about 5 minutes before continuing on.

The same happens when I have a USB pen disk attached upon boot. If I attach the device after the PC has loaded then it is very quick however plugging and unplugging is not ideal.

Is there away to disable this in the BIOS as I cannot instantly see an option.

On boot it informs me I have an American Trends AMIBIOS in the BIOS setup it states the version as v02.58 2006. This is running on a ASUS MV2 Motherboard.

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7 Answers 7

Reset to default
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Usually this is because the BIOS is searching your whole drive for a boot sector that it can latch onto. You can sometimes upgrade the BIOS to make it a bit faster (usually just makes it give up easier). The other option is to remove the "removable device" from your BIOS boot order, or place it below your normal HDD.

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I had the same problem on an HP desktop. Almost 3 minutes to simply arrive at the Windows splash screen, vs 15 seconds without the USB attached. There are no BIOS settings which force the computer to ignore the attached USB drive. But I discovered a simple solution- purchase a USB hub (I bought a Belkin) and plug the drive into the hub, and the hub into the computer. Problem gone!

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  • Can't verify this answer but I've had the same problem with Windows XP. After switching to OpenBSD I haven't had that problem anymore
    – Earlz
    May 19, 2010 at 18:40
  • Interesting will try later
    – John
    May 20, 2010 at 12:36
  • Clarification- I have my computer set up so when the computer shuts down, it turns off the outlet strip connected to all the vampire transformers. Apparently when you boot up the machine, the hub is still waking up when the PC is looking for USB devices. If I attach the hub to a non-switched outlet, then the PC "sees" the USB hard drive immediately, and the boot slows to a crawl. Can't believe the HP bios lets this happen. Not a problem with my Sony Vaio computer. Both running Win7.
    – user37700
    May 20, 2010 at 16:43
  • Initially I thought it might be slower connected through an hub, but for so strange reason it was actually way faster. I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong before... maybe there was something wrong with the UBS connection I've used or maybe it has to do with extra power the hub provides...
    – Shachar Har-Shuv
    Apr 29, 2022 at 11:16
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Have you looked for a BIOS update?

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itprovistahardware/thread/c3ed0c76-07ad-462b-8715-90342a555cb2 - recommends doing so.

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It is dependent on the BIOS, when you have another type of media, an additional loading stage will have to do its job, which take time, especially if it is a HDD because it may not speed up when the PC does.

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I also had slow boot time (1+ minute) with attached Transcend 2Tb USB HDD (Win10,64bit). Changing drive policy helped me here:

  1. go to drive settings: My Computer-->Select Drive-->Right Click

  2. Properties--> Hardware--> Select your ExtHDD drive --> Properties --> Change Settings

  3. New Properties window opens. Go to Policies tab. Set "Optimize for Quick Removal"

My boot time dropped to acceptable (for me) 30 sec.

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Some BIOS versions allow you to specify removable media as one of the boot devices. If you remove this from the bios boot order, the system should ignore the USB drive while windows loads.

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    Unfortunately this one does not.
    – John
    Aug 5, 2009 at 20:29
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Sadly the Toshiba Satellite (A200) is the same.

If there is a USB drive attached then don't bother with a boot, disconnect the drive first.

The only advantage of the hub is that you can disconnect all drives (connected to the hub) at once - hardly satisfactory.

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