Windows 7 Won't Boot Without External Hard Drive Turned On?
Jun 6, 2010
I just restarted my PC and i kept getting erros regarding hardware, at first it would just hold at updating dmi pool , after i reset the bios to fail safe defaults it would then give me the I/O error. I noticed my external drive was turned off and I turned it on and windows booted fine. Is there a connection here i can disable?
Windows is installed on my SSD drive not my external.
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Jan 12, 2013
What happened to my computer is, I kept getting the BSOD, I went into safe mode, removed the most recent programs I had installed, and it stopped happening. I then proceeded to plug in my external hard drive. It was not recognizing it for some reason, so I went to disk management. It was listed there, just without a drive letter. I tried to assign it a drive letter, and it gave me an error message saying something about refreshing the list, (this is the error message I should have researched), I tried refreshing the drive list, and tried reassigning the drive letter, same message. I right clicked on the drive again, and I saw mark as active. For some stupid reason, I clicked on this. Then seeing that it didn't do anything, I thought maybe restarting the computer would maybe do the trick. Now my computer won't boot.
It gets to the windows logo, and boom, restarts all over again. I tried many things like, startup repair, system restore, marking partition as active CMD, with diskpart, I also tried some of the commands in bootrec.exe. By the way, if this helps at all, my hard drive is a solid state drive, I also have a slave drive in there which does also have a copy of windows installed on it, (it was my old hard drive), I tried setting that as my primary boot and it boots into my old install of windows, before i got my solid state drive. Is there a way I can fix the startup by having access to it from an operating system instead of the recovery environment?
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Jun 21, 2010
Is it possible to dual boot windows 7 and ubuntu, with ubuntu on a external hard drive? I can connect my external hard drive via USB 2.0, USB 3.0 or E-SATA. I want windows 7 as my main OS.
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Jan 21, 2012
I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 (2.5 years old). All my data is backed up so I have no concerns about recoverying data.First, the laptop crashed and ran several chkdsk on start up. I froze several times during this. It said it had fixed some errors then started up again.This time it wanted to do start up repair. Same thing kept happening, froze at least twenty times during this. Eventually it gave me the blue screen of death.
'Technical information
*** STOP: 0x000000F4 (0x0000000000000003, 0xFFFFFA8004C1D260, 0xFFFFFA8004C1D498, 0xFFFFF8000130DDA0)'
This repeated several times. I ran the diagnostics and it told me the hard drive could not be found (error code 0146, 2000-0146). Essentially, it's a Dell laptop (I know) and I am not bothered about recovering the hard drive.I would, however, like to install Windows 7, or alternatively Linux, onto my external hard drive. But I just can't seem to get it to work.I have extracted a Linux iso to the external hard drive I want to install on, onto a cd, onto a FAT32 8gb usb stick, but it has given me the bootmgr is missing error every time. I have tried it with the interal HDD in and removed.I am no longer concerned about the internal HDD, i can use it for a door stop for all I am concerned, I just want to load ANY os onto my external hard drive so I can get the laptop working.
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Mar 13, 2012
I had a Mac laptop that MB crashed. I had a 3rd party turn the HD into an external drive for me so that I could access the data from it. However, when trying to hook it up to my Windows 7 pc, it is not showing in Win Explorer. After reading a few posts, a lot of people are recommending reformatting or other options that I'm afraid will destroy the data. The drive is shown in my Disk Management window as "Basic", "Healthy" and "Online", just no Drive letter?
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Dec 30, 2009
I have a Dell Inspiron 1440 laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. Some of my older applications do not support this platform. My processor does not support Window Virtual PC and Windows XP mode so I was hoping to add XP as a dual boot. Is it possible to boot XP from an external harddrive or USB instead of having to partition the internal hard drive. Or do you have any suggestions on how I can load XP after Windows 7 is already loaded.
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May 1, 2009
can I dual boot using an ext. Hard drive. I found an old 250gb phanton hd I've never used. Figured I could throw it in there. Would vista dual boot to that. Or no??
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Oct 11, 2012
My Acer netbook has developed some kind of fault and I am unsure as to what I ought to do. The netbook does boot to BIOS and also will boot up from an external drive...but will not boot normally. I am thinking of replacing the hard drive but don't know if there could be something else wrong. It says sometimes that it can't read it and from this I am not sure if there is something else wrong. If I change the drive does it sound as though things will work? There are also a couple of other intermittent faults such as certain letters and numbers not working and then everything is fine for a while...
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Mar 28, 2012
my desktop computer won't boot. When I turn it on it displays the welcome splash screen and then goes black. A message will then display that says CMD failed to start and then it will shut down. It does the same thing in safe mode as well.My question is. I have already set up the HD from the desktop as an external to my laptop so I could get files off it. Is there any way to do system restore on the hard drive when it is set as an external? Because I did this last night and I think if I restore the drive it will fix it.
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Oct 23, 2011
.I didn't wait for the computer to tell me it was ok to remove the drive in the usb port. Now my computer no longer recognizes the external drive After removing my external hard drive (without the ok) my computer no longer recognizes the external hard drive. What do I do.
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Mar 30, 2012
I have an internal hard disk not in use ,and I would like to make it as external disk !I looked on the net and I found I should have the " encelsure " butt I think I wont find it here in my city .So is there another way ? like usb -esata cable
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Mar 4, 2010
Me and my brother built me a new computer from scratch (he did the building - i did the watching). I purchased an internal hard drive from Overclockers UK. It's a Samsung 1TB drive. I also have a 64 Solid-state drive in there as my primary hard drive that Windows was installed on and a couple of programs are installed on. My storage disk (the 1TB disk) is for all my music/films etc. Whenever I drag and drop a file into the Samsung hard-drive - it copies it rather than moves it instantly.When I had a laptop, I had 3 external hard drives and this is the way it copied files onto them.how I can get the internal drive to stop acting like an external drive?
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Mar 15, 2012
I don't know if its a coincidence, but I left my blu-ray drive open when I turned my PC off, and all hell broke loose. Now I get these Unmounable Boot Volume. So Far,
- I've switched around the boot configuration. I've taken out the cmos battery.
- I've disconnected my 2nd hard drive
- I've reset bios default settings
- I've switched the SATA ports
I don't know what else to do, because I don't want to do a Fresh OS install. Right now I'm just working on 1 hard drive. my second 1tb is disconnected from power and data and I'm having the same problem. I also just disconnected my Blu-ray drive. And I did the start up repair. Niether worked.
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Jun 15, 2011
I noticed that Windows 7 takes a bit longer to read my photo & video files specially those in my external hard drive. I have to wait for that green bar on top to completely fill-up before accessing my files. Usually takes about 2-3 minutes for each folder. My other laptop which runs on XP displays the files quickly.
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May 21, 2009
I'm using the release candidate and whenever I plug in my Western Digital Passport USB external hard drive, I get nothing. It doesn't show up in device manager or in My Computer. The light on the harddrive comes on and the drive spins up, so I know it's working. Windows just won't recognize it.
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Mar 23, 2012
750 Samsung portable device. Problems seems to sort itself out eventually but it keeps firing up prompts to format the drive before I can use it. First time it happened I had to unplug it, restarted and then it was OK. It just did it again and then again when I restarted, took a minute or two but eventually it read the drive and it was ok. Why is this happening and what can I do to stop it? Might it be a power issue? I have the device connected via a USB 2.0 port, through an extension lead and then through a 4 way splitter. I have had problems with this splitter before I think, but not with the small connector. Maybe I can try connecting it through one of the other ports and see if it still has the same problem.
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Jul 13, 2012
I have windows 7 64 bit and I'm trying to copy data from my old desktop which won't boot up anymore to my laptop. It is a 3.5 inch sata hard drive which I connected to a usb external hard drive dock. But when I plug it in windows just doesn't recognize it and it doesn't appear in windows explorer. When I go into disk management it recognizes it but says it is not initialized and asks me if I want to initialize it. I'm reluctant to do this as I'm not sure if it will wipe the drive. Any ideas on how I can view my files?
It is a 300GB drive split into 3 NTFS partitions which has both windows xp and windows 7 installed on it.
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Aug 7, 2012
For some reason my HP Laptop (Win 7 Home Premium) can't see/recognize my usb external hard drive (seagate). When I start/restart my computer and connected the usb cable into laptop, it shows the icon on bottom taskbar (safely remove hardware and when clicked on the usb icon, I see "open Devices & Printers and Eject USB to IDE bridge), but I can't see my drive at all when I click on "my computer"? I can only see it under "right click Computer, Manage, Device Manger, Disk Drives," it only says; "generic USB Disk USB Device". And when I expanded the USB controllers via Device Manager, I can see it under USB Mass Storage Device. Sadly, I can't do much there/here unless Win 7 can see/recognize the drive under "My Computer".<> HD is 40GB IDE Seagate (enclosure is PowerSpec 3.5 IDE to USB 2.0)<> Drive is only storage for data, documents, pictures and softwares/programs, etc.<> Drive is/was not formattedAgain, this drive was never formatted, only for storage purpose (i.e. pictures, documents, data, etc.). I can see it on my old computer when connected internal via IDE cable.
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Oct 25, 2012
I have recently had to ditch my old computer windows xp, and bought a new Dell running windows Hoem repmium 7 (64 bit). I had a 32 bit ide external hard drive and had backed up my files there. Having got the enw copmpouetr set up I am trying to access my archived files on the 32 bit to transfer to new hard disk, but am unable to do so. Windows explorer locks up.
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Apr 17, 2011
First time poster here. I messed up big time trying to get my dell 1747 to dual boot in xp and win 7, i think. I installed xp on to an external hard drive via and esata connection. Now it won't boot without the external hard drive connected and of course will only boot in xp. The xp disc manager say that windows 7 is the primary os which confused me. I Tried the windows 7 recovery disc but it won't boot. I'm completely lost here, and I'm looking for the first step to take. AS it stands I have a C:RECOVERY, D:Fantom(my external to which i installed xp) and E: OS, why is E labeled OS? I could really use some help here.I can't uninstall xp in safe mode with administrator access. I'm wondering if i format the D drive containing Windows xp, if I will Automatically boot from my previous windows 7?
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Mar 13, 2012
Just upgraded all my hardware and windows needs reinstalling to reconfigure.Trouble is my existing dvd drives are IDE and my new motherboard has no IDE port. I have a copy of windows 7 on an external hard drive in the form of an iso and various files.Is it possible to plug it into a USB port and use the external to install 7 onto the internal? I'd rather not have to buy a Sata DVD drive.Would I need to wipe everything but windows 7 on the external
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Apr 19, 2012
how can i install win7 or win xp on external hard drive for cary it with me and use it when i need it as another operating system in usb port in any computer?
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Oct 5, 2012
I have purchased a new PC with 64 bit Windows 7 OS. My old PC is a 32 bit Windows XP OS. I have a WD Passport 1tb external hard drive connected to the old PC that auto - backs up my files. I have already transfered files from my old PC to my new PC using a Windows Transfer Cable & software. Do I have to perform any changes to the External Hard Drive before I hook to the New Windows 7 PC? I am not sure if I should just hook the external hard drive to new PC and see what happens or what?
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Oct 18, 2012
how can i install win7 on a ext hd. I can boot win7 installation files from a ext usb drive, but i cant boot win7 itself.....
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Aug 21, 2012
I have a USB external hard drive that I keep all my documents etc on (had it for years)I upgraded from Vista Home to & Home Premium then had to upgrade recently to Professional to run my Sage. Through all these upgrades my ext. drive ran fine. Occasionally the drvie letter would change if I had something else plugged into the USB, this was always easily corected in disk management by changing the drive path.The connection on the case packed up so I had to get the drive put into a new case, now when I plug it in the drive is assigned G instead of F, I tried to change the drive letter allocation in Disk Management but it won't let me as the program still thinks I have a second ext. hard drive which is labelled F. I suspect this has happened because when the usb connection broke the drive was disconnected suddenly instead of a proper eject.How do I get Disk Management to remove the inactive drive - i can't find any obvious way - eject, delete etc are all missing when I click on tools or tasks.
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Nov 13, 2012
Low disk space, Can transfer data on D drive to an external hard drive
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Jan 27, 2013
Anytime I have my external hard drive (2 TB Seagate Expansion) plugged into my computer (any USB port) and I try to shut down, it comes alive from sleep after being unused and spins up while Windows is in the blue backgrounded screen that says "Shutting down" and it just completely stops the process of shutting down, leaving it there for minutes and possibly more (can't remember how long at the longest, been so long since I left it plugged before shutting down and I usually just unpower the drive if it hangs).
What causes Windows to randomly start accessing the drive? It only has my movies and music and images and manual backups, so no program actually needs those files and at that phase with the shutting down screen, no other program should be running but the OS itself. (somewhere else it was suggested that any programs still running would cause the drive to spin up when trying to close)Here's my basic system info from the TSG info tool Quote:
Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1, 64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 4
Processor Count: 8
RAM: 12279 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 1024 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 114370 MB, Free - 46618 MB; E: Total - 194558 MB, Free - 42107 MB; F: Total - 759306 MB, Free - 37164 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC., SABERTOOTH X58
Antivirus: avast! Antivirus, Updated and Enabled
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May 21, 2009
I'm using the release candidate and whenever I plug in my Western Digital Passport USB external hard drive, I get nothing. It doesn't show up in device manager or in My Computer. The light on the harddrive comes on and the drive spins up, so I know it's working. Windows just won't recognize it.
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May 22, 2011
I have a WD My Book 110 External Hard Drive and when I plug it in and go to my computer to access the files on it the drive doesn't show, but if I go to the start menu and type b: in the search box it shows the files and the drive also shows in Disk Management, so why isn't it showing in My Computer and how can I get it to show?
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Jul 4, 2011
I have an external Samsung 640Gb hard drive which is not showing up in Windows Explorer, even though Device Manager shows it as recognized and working properly. I am running Windows 7 Home and this is something new as when I bought the drive it showed up in Explorer. I really need this drive as all my backups and programs are on it!
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Apr 14, 2011
I have a Maxtor 500GB stand alone hard drive which I originally bought for a Vista laptop, but have also been using it on my new Windows 7 laptop.It has been absolutely fine for the 6 months that I've been on Windows 7, but today Windows Update decided that I needed 27 (count 'em!) updates to be installed an run - mostly for MS Office.
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