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External USB drive prevents PC from booting (not the usual suspects)

L

lalaland5000

Junior Member
Hi everyone,

(Apologies for the long post)

My 4TB Seagate Backup Plus portable backup drive is suddenly preventing my desktop PC from booting when it's plugged in, and I haven't been able to track down the problem.

I've been using it for months with no issues - it was permanently plugged into a USB 3.0 port in the back and Windows 10 was successfully storing its automatic backups there.

I first noticed the issue when Windows 10 popped up a message complaining that my backup drive had been disconnected for too long and it wasn't able to complete the back up. The drive was connected, and I could even see it in the File Explorer. When I tried to click on it, however, Explorer just froze up until I physically disconnected the drive.

Boot issues
If I leave it plugged in, the machine will usually just hang at POST. Sometimes, though, it will boot but it seems unpredictable. Similarly for its behavior inside Windows -- usually I can't access it and Explorer freezes, but once in a while I can get in, but then it hangs again after I get one or two levels deep into the folder structure.

Other storage devices
If I plug in a USB 3.0 flash drive or an older USB 2.0 externally powered hard drive into the USB port, my PC boots up and behaves normally. I can access the files and there are no other abnormalities.

Other machine
If I plug the drive into a Macbook Air, it works 100% fine! I left it plugged in for 24 hours and no problems accessing and opening files (I think the Mac can only read and not write to the drive but I'm not sure).

I've tried the usual fixes that people suggest:
  • Restarted my PC multiple times
  • Tried accessing the drive in Safe Mode
    • Doesn't work in Safe Mode either -- I get an error message saying that there's an I/O problem.
  • Updated the mobo BIOS (Asus Z97M-Plus)
    • Confirmed that the boot order is correct
  • Removed and reseated RAM (8GB) on mobo
  • In Device Manager, removed and then reinstalled any mentions of the drive
    • This actually fixed things for a short while and I thought I'd solved the problem but it came back after a couple of hours
    • It worked long enough that Windows was actually able to complete its backup process once
  • Tried plugging the drive into different USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports on my computer -- same behavior.
    • One time I plugged it into one of the 2.0 ports and it started working again but started misbehaving after a short period
Is it the drive?
But it works fine on my Mac

Is it Windows 10?
But it hangs at POST as well as misbehaves inside Windows

Is it my PC hardware?
But the machine boots and behaves with a USB 3.0 flash drive or USB 2.0 hard drive plugged in at boot time

I'm stumped - any ideas?
Thanks in advance for any and all response!
 
I would suspect the backup software that came with the drive, assuming you're using it. If you uninstall it, you might lose your backup history, but if that's not an issue for you, I'd suggest an uninstall and re-install.

If you're using the built-in Windows Backup, look for a problem there.
 
Check for BIOS updates for the PC.

Reset factory defaults and see if that helps.

Sounds like the drive is the problem though, the Mac boots differently, so probably just doesn't care.
 
LalaLand

Just a quick note to say that I had a similar issue with an external drive plugged into a workstation that would prevent it from booting. Spent hours trying to find the issue and could never solve it. One guess, bios is looking to the drive as a boot drive, but doesn't move past it to find a real boot drive. It would be interesting if you could reformat the external drive with a few different file systems and see if that makes any difference.
 
OP Joined: Mar 4, 2010
First Post Oct 13, 2017
New record ... Or problem a long time in development ?
 
SeanFL said:
LalaLand

Just a quick note to say that I had a similar issue with an external drive plugged into a workstation that would prevent it from booting. Spent hours trying to find the issue and could never solve it. One guess, bios is looking to the drive as a boot drive, but doesn't move past it to find a real boot drive. It would be interesting if you could reformat the external drive with a few different file systems and see if that makes any difference.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think my next step is to wipe the drive and start from scratch. Fortunately it's just my backup drive so I don't have to worry about losing data. Since I can't get the PC to reliably see the drive, hopefully I'll be able to format it from my Mac.
 
Hi - I wanted to update this thread. After more frustration, I gave up and went and purchased a replacement drive. Everything is back to normal now, so I guess it was a faulty drive that was causing the problems.
 
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