External Hard Drives Booting Issue

[chbunch06]

For years I have had a old laptop running 5 external usb hard drives for my home file shares/Media Server. Recently I upgraded to a fairly new desktop with much better specs and all went great until I rebooted.

Upon booting I get the error "Non System disk or disk error" message. After some testing, 3 of the 5 hard drives must be unplugged for the system to boot correctly. Ironically the three newest of the 5 hard drives are having the problem. The only connection besides being newer is that they are all usb 3.0 drives and my old laptop did NOT have usb 3.0 ports where my new desktop does. Once my pc is up and going, I can plug them in and all is well.

Any Ideas? Ive checked and actually disabled any usb booting in the bios to keep it from attempting to boot to the usb drives, but again its only doing it on three of them. Could there be something Im missing in the bios causing this? Im thinking it must have something to do with usb 3.0 drives and ports, but I cannot find it.

Thanks,

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there chbunch06,

I think that you need to start with testing these 3 drive with a brand specific testing tool(or a third party one). The results will show you whether there is something wrong with them.
Another thing you can do is to reinstall the USB 3 controllers of your system.
If the issue persists, you can go to BIOS and disable Legacy USB Support: http://helpdeskgeek.com/help-desk/unable-to-boot-windows-with-external-hard-drive-attached/

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

A common issue even with USB 2.0 - - it's not because of USB 3.0.

I have four external hard drives (all USB 2.0) and I have to unplug all of them for booting, otherwise system hangs at boot splash screen. Don't plug them in them in until Windows is up & running, simple.

Alternatively, if that's going to be a pain, put your PC to sleep instead of shutting it down, even through the night. It won't do any harm, will avoid the problem, and of course no waiting for Windows to load.

I haven't shut down my system for four months, I do the same with my laptop too.

 

[chbunch06]

Thanks so much for the input! I will try some of the suggested options and see if I can find a good solution. I have run health checks and all is well besides one having a high temp at one point. I believe is attempting to boot from drives even though it's not set to, giving me the non system disk message.

Thanks again.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Just thought I'd add (having seen post from D_Know_WD above) that I frequently test all my hard drives including the externals with WD's Diagnostic software. All perfectly healthy using the Long/Extended test.

chbunch06 - I never get the "Non-system disk" error with externals connected. All that happens is the boot process just hangs at the motherboard splash screen just prior to the 'all okay' beep. Your BIOS evidently just has a different way of responding to the same situation.

By all means test your drives as advised by D_Know_WD though, no harm in doing that, very sensible advice in fact.

Don't forget my tip on putting your PC to sleep instead of shutting down. It's an excellent way around the problem we've been discussing. I only shut mine down when I leave home for more than a couple of days.