Reboot Loops if USB-HDD is plugged in

[RhysAndrews]

Hey guys!
I was reformatting a friends old Alienware PC, and it has gone pretty well. However, I've just discovered that if my portable WD hard-drive is plugged in when the computer boots up, the computer reboots as soon as the XP loading screen appears.

What could this be caused by?
Thanks
Rhys

 

[drumthrasher]

Couldn't help you there, but you could just wait until (crappy) XP starts and then plug it in .

 

[Tommy Boy]

Not sure, I'm assuming the pc is booting from the internal hard drive. It might be trying to boot from the external? Maybe go into the bios and look at the boot sequence and make sure the optical drive is first, then the hard drive, then everything else.

 

[Celegorm]

^^That's what I'm thinking as well.

 

[drumthrasher]

Thats what I was thinking at first, but he said that at the XP bootscreen it restarts, so it can't be booting from the external drive.

 

[Tommy Boy]

Is there an activity light on the external? Watch that when you try and boot the pc. If it shows activity when the pc is booting that means it is either trying to boot from it, or possibly trying to pull files from it that aren't there.

Can't hurt to go root around in the bios to see what options are there and how things are set up.