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    V2000z - Can't boot from external HARD drive!

    Discussion in 'HP' started by joed, Jul 6, 2006.

  1. joed

    joed Newbie

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    I desperately need this to work pronto!

    Tried 2 different USB enclosures, same behavior. Hard drive is recognized in BIOS. They also will add the external drive, just fine, to a Windows booted from the internal drive.

    However, if I disable the internal drive in BIOS and try to boot from the USB drive, nothing happens except that the screen displays an error message like this:
    For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
    PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
    PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

    Which means that it is not finding a bootable device. All this happens even if I choose a boot device (F11?) at startup.

    Ironically, I bought a cheap (rebuilt) USB floppy drive from Tiger Direct which boots just fine.

    All ideas are welcome and appreciated. TIA

    Joed
     
    joed, Jul 6, 2006
    #1
  2. glentium

    glentium Notebook Evangelist

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    Did you set the boot sequence in the BIOS settings?
     
    glentium, Jul 6, 2006
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  3. joed

    joed Newbie

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    Yes, I did. Thanks.

    I am finding info around the net that leads me to believe that it is not possible to boot into WinXP from a USB hard drive, yet. There is an emerging spec by Compaq/Phoenix/Intel that would enhance BIOS to allow this...in the future it seems.

    For now, I am trying to figure out if there is any way to do what I want by booting via the floppy first.
     
    joed, Jul 6, 2006
    #3
  4. vassil_98

    vassil_98 Notebook Deity

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    You should be able to boot from a usb drive but I don't know for a usb external HDD.
     
    vassil_98, Jul 6, 2006
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  5. preachp

    preachp Notebook Consultant

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    Hi Joed,
    I haven't heard of anybody booting off an external drive. It doesn't mean it's impossible just never heard of it. Anyway XP looks for a file callled Boot.INI at start up it establishes the drive, partition location that XP is going to for its start records.
    Wonder if this could be hindering you.
     
    preachp, Jul 6, 2006
    #5