Strange esta issue

[Mr_Jones]

Hello,
Got a good one for you! I have an external hard drive attached to my computer (custom built) via eSATA. Recently, whenever I turn the machine on, it will announce "please restart and select proper boot device". I restarted and entered the BIOS. The only STATA dive listed in the Intel Visual BIOS is the external, the internal drives are marked as not installed. When I disconnect the external drive it will boot normally.

Odd... Any ideas?
Thanks!

 

[COLGeek]

What make/model of motherboard are you using? Is your eSATA port one directly attached to your motherboard or via an adapter?

Did you try removing the eSATA device from your boot devices in the BIOS?

 

[Mr_Jones]

The builder lists the motherboard as "MB-LGA1155Thunderbolt (ADK - LGA1155 Z77 Thunderbolt Motherboard: 2x 16X PCIe, 3 PCIe 1x, 2 PCI, dual channel DDR3)" if that helps. I imagine it's directly connected to the MB, as I didn't add an adapter (it's plugged directly into the tower).

I didn't find a way to remove the drive via the BIOS. Could be in there but I sure didn't see it. When plugged in, only the eSATA drive is named. All other drives are marked "Unknown" for some odd reason.

Thank you!

 

[COLGeek]

In your BIOS, you should be able to pick the devices the system will try to boot from. That is where you would remove the eSATA drive if it is listed.

Is your motherboard BIOS up to date?

 

[Mr_Jones]

That's just the problem. In the boot section it says "no boot drive" whenever the LaCie eSATA drive is plugged in. Looking at the drives list in the BIOS, none of the internal drives are detected, but the external is registered under secondary SATA. Pull out the external and it boots perfectly.

Any idea why booting with a external drive installed would make the internal drives inaccessible to the BIOS?

Thank you.

 

[Mr_Jones]

Also, my BIOS has been updated.

 

[COLGeek]

Check the LaCie support website to see if there are any updates for your drive's firmware. I agree that this is a very odd conflict.

 

[LaCieTech]

Hi, the "boot order" in the bios is likely the issue. Sometimes it has tricky wording that make it hard to distinguish external and internal drives. Probably should set it up so that external drives aren't on the list at all and it only boots from internal disks. Please give us a call if that doesn't help. We're at 503-844-4500 (USA) or www.lacie.com/mystuff ~mn, LaCie