External HD causing XP boot issue?

[Guest]

I just built a new system with a GigaByte KU MoBo, Athlon 64 3200+ CPU, 2 GB
DDR 3200 RAM and a Western Digital 300 GB SATA Hard Drive. I installed XP
with no problem, installed all my drivers, restored files, etc, etc. etc. So,
I take an old 120 GB WD hard drive I had from my last system, and toss it
into an external case to backup all my MP3's on and connect it to my new
system. I also had another, seperate WD 120 external attached to the system,
so now I have my 300 GB SATA drive that contains the OS and 2 120 GB external
drives. So far so good.

I reboot and Windows gets to the welcome screen and just hangs. I go back
and reinstall all my drivers, run anti-virus, anti-spyware, chkdsk, memory
tests - everything I can think of. XP still hangs. So, I reinstall XP twice,
go through all the resintalllations, etc. etc. etc. XP boots up and
everything is golden.

I switch on my SECOND external drive and XP starts to hang again. Now I've
made the connection and I switch off the drive, reboot and it goes right into
the OS. I switch it back on, it hangs again. Does this make sense? The only
files on the two externals are backups. No OS installed. Just data files. Is
XP scanning all attached storage devices and getting confused where to boot
from? Does this scenario create a sensible explanation on why XP would hang
at startup? I hope I have this ficgured out, but not sure this is the cause.
Has anyone else seen or heard of this happening?

 

[Mistoffolees]

I just built a new system with a GigaByte KU MoBo, Athlon 64 3200+ CPU, 2 GB
DDR 3200 RAM and a Western Digital 300 GB SATA Hard Drive. I installed XP
with no problem, installed all my drivers, restored files, etc, etc. etc. So,
I take an old 120 GB WD hard drive I had from my last system, and toss it
into an external case to backup all my MP3's on and connect it to my new
system. I also had another, seperate WD 120 external attached to the system,
so now I have my 300 GB SATA drive that contains the OS and 2 120 GB external
drives. So far so good.

I reboot and Windows gets to the welcome screen and just hangs. I go back
and reinstall all my drivers, run anti-virus, anti-spyware, chkdsk, memory
tests - everything I can think of. XP still hangs. So, I reinstall XP twice,
go through all the resintalllations, etc. etc. etc. XP boots up and
everything is golden.

I switch on my SECOND external drive and XP starts to hang again. Now I've
made the connection and I switch off the drive, reboot and it goes right into
the OS. I switch it back on, it hangs again. Does this make sense? The only
files on the two externals are backups. No OS installed. Just data files. Is
XP scanning all attached storage devices and getting confused where to boot
from? Does this scenario create a sensible explanation on why XP would hang
at startup? I hope I have this ficgured out, but not sure this is the cause.
Has anyone else seen or heard of this happening?

The interesting point about Western Digital hard drives are
their jumper settings whilst in the external USB enclosure.
The jumpers should be set for a single drive...i.e., neither
Master, Slave or CSel; in other words, unjumpered.