New Windows 7 installation trying to boot from external USB drive

I bought a brand new Seagate 1TB drive and inserted the installation disk, commenced installation. Not thinking that I had to remove them I also had two external USB drives connected. One WD 3TB drive and the other a WD 500 GB drive, both USB. During the installation, it asked me which drive to utilize. I selected the 1 TB drive and the other two drives weren't even listed. When it got to the point of supposedly writing the files to the drive, it just sat there and sat there and sat there. I looked at the external USB drive and it was very active, where the drive light was flashing with activity. The screen stated that it was still 0% writing so in my panic, I cancelled the installation. It appeared to quit properly and the computer powered down. I disconnected the two external drives and made a second attempt. The second attempt flew through with no issues, loading and it booted up in 7 fine.

I connected the one WD 3TB drive. It recognized the drive and I was able to see the contents of the drive with no problem. I restarted the computer. During the restart, when the window comes up "starting Windows", it just sits there. Windows emblem pulsing, just sits there. I look at the external drive and it is active. It never boots.

I powered down. I disconnected the newly installed W7 hard drive and installed a previous drive I have with Kubuntu 12.04. During the boot process, it too, now lags in booting, now taking about 4 minutes to boot, finally coming up to the desktop for Kubuntu. During the boot process, the external 3 TB drive shows activity. I've looked at the flags in Gparted for this drive and it does not show it as a boot drive.

What can I look for on this drive that is making it use this drive or even look at this drive? My BIOS does (and has been) use USB or CDROM drive for first order boot but I've never had this problem before, even when I had it designated for XP. Thanks for your replies and I'll add amplifying information as we go along.


laserman

Please post back a screenshot with all drives connected of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

Confirm that only the Win7 hard drive is set first to boot in BIOS setup. I would also confirm that you correctly installed in AHCI mode for the SATA controller which is optimal.

If so you may need to move the data off to wipe the hard drives with Diskpart Clean Command which clears any boot code that can interfere. But first let us look at the configuration to make sure Win7 is configured correctly and only its intended boot partition is marked System and Active.

Thank you both gregrocker and mhansen1.

I threw this out there after having been frustrated trying to clear it before going to work this morning. I won't be able to get a snapshot until I get home later this evening.

mhansen1, you are correct. I want the 1Tb drive to boot and the 3 TB drive to be just an external drive.

I'll get you the snap later this eve. Thanks again.

Laserman

Attached shot of Disk Management.

The configuration is correct.

There may be some boot code on the external which is intefering. The best way to resolve this is to move the data off to wipe it with Diskpart Clean Command.

Then repartition it as a Logical drive for data only which cannot ever interfere with boot: Partition / Extended : Logical Drives - Windows 7 Forums

Something I did in the past and don't know why but there is a shadow copy of an old XP box I have on this drive. It's not a back up, iso, or img. Straight out shadow copy. Files right out there...could that be interfering?

Good reminder. Did you assure the Win7 hard drive is remaining set first drive to boot in BIOS setup as we earlier suggested?

Checking now.