Problem with USB boot where 2 evinces present

Devices devices devices - damned autocorrect

Hi, I have a hp dc7100 desktop and I'm struggling to automatically boot from a USB stick while I also have an external USB disk drive attached.

In the bios I get the following:

If I only have the USB stick in I get it shown as 4gb Kingston data traveller and I can select it as first boot and it successfully boots from the USB stick.

If I have both the USB stick and the external drive connected I only get one USB device available to select as the boot device - 2tb desktop drive - and, since it is a data drive and not bootable, I get the "non system disk......." error on boot.J

Does anyone know why, when I have both USB devices attached, I cannot select between them as boot devices in the bios?

Even hitting f9 on boot with both devices attached only gives me one "USB device" line and selecting it gives me*the "non system disk......." error on boot.

Thanks so much in advance for any help you can provide.


Paul

You can probably see in your BIOS that only 1 "removable device" (USB Device) can be a bootable device at a time. Perhaps according to how the USB ports are numbered (to the computer, you may have to guess & test), the one connected to the external drive is probably just taking precedence over the thumbdrive.

For instance, my BIOS can have 4 bootable devices. For each of these slots, I could choose from up to 2HDDs by name, only 1DVD drive, "Removable Device", Network, or Disabled. See how only 1 instance of the generic "Removable Device?" It's just not the same as internally connected HDDs.

Hope this helps. =)

I agree with above. In case you don't solve, connecting the USB HDD to a USB hub does usually the trick, as the BIOS does not know how to operate a hub and access the devices under it (the OS does), thus devices connected to it work only after boot, when the OS is taking over.

Each USB port should be treated differently. This is evidenced in Device Manager, where they are numbered or at least you see that 1 name corresponds permanently only to 1 port. Or like in the instance of a very old printer I had, will only work on the USB port it was originally installed in-- I had 4 instances of the same printer by the time I figured that out!

Also like bobafethotmail explained, yes, hard-disk-drives are usually treated as "installed drives" when connected via eSATA. Via USB, it should be treated as a removable device. If not, the extra step with the hub certainly would do it.

Good luck & let us know what happens!