A problem created by a flash drive

[Charlie]

The OS is XPPro with SP3.
I have been using a flash drive that is left in one of the USB ports on the
rear of the box as a place to backup financial data. This way it won't get
lost.

This is a pretty small drive and I was concerned that it might get filled.
I got a larger drive and transferred all the backup data to this larger
drive.
The problem: on the next reboot, I got the message that the drive did not
have the system on it.
There was nothing in my A drive.
Pressing a key did not help. I pulled out this new flash drive and the
system booted normally.
I replaced it with the old drive and everything works as expected.
I deleted everything from the larger drive and checked its properties. The
free space is equal to the size. Viewing hidden files is enabled.
The drives are from different makers.
I have not gone into my system setup to see where USB are in the boot
sequence as not every drive causes this.

What is going on here?

Charlie

 

[smlunatick]

The OS is XPPro with SP3.
I have been using a flash drive that is left in one of the USB ports on the
rear of the box as a place to backup financial data. This way it won't  get
lost.

This is a pretty small drive and I was concerned that it might get filled..
I got a larger drive and transferred all the backup data to this larger
drive.
The problem: on the next reboot, I got the message that the drive did not
have the system on it.
There was nothing in my A drive.
Pressing a key did not help. I pulled out this new flash drive and the
system booted normally.
I replaced it with the old drive and everything works as expected.
I deleted everything from  the larger drive and checked its properties.The
free space is equal to the size. Viewing hidden files is enabled.
The drives are from different makers.
I have not gone into my system setup to see where USB are in the boot
sequence as not every drive causes this.

What is going on here?

Charlie

Several PCs have a BIOS settings which tell it to place any Flash
drive into the boot sequence. You need to make sure that Floppy drive
A: and your Drive C: is in the boot sequence before the flash drive
settings.

You older flash drive might not "push" your PC to boot from it but
your newer one might.

 

[Big_Al]

Several PCs have a BIOS settings which tell it to place any Flash
drive into the boot sequence. You need to make sure that Floppy drive
A: and your Drive C: is in the boot sequence before the flash drive
settings.

You older flash drive might not "push" your PC to boot from it but
your newer one might.

I get the same issue on my desktop but not the laptop. So its not the
drive I'm suspecting. I like smlunatick's concept to look at the BIOS.
But currently I just deal with it by removing the thumb drive.

 

[Charlie]

The OS is XPPro with SP3.
I have been using a flash drive that is left in one of the USB ports on
the
rear of the box as a place to backup financial data. This way it won't get
lost.

This is a pretty small drive and I was concerned that it might get filled.
I got a larger drive and transferred all the backup data to this larger
drive.
The problem: on the next reboot, I got the message that the drive did not
have the system on it.
There was nothing in my A drive.
Pressing a key did not help. I pulled out this new flash drive and the
system booted normally.
I replaced it with the old drive and everything works as expected.
I deleted everything from the larger drive and checked its properties. The
free space is equal to the size. Viewing hidden files is enabled.
The drives are from different makers.
I have not gone into my system setup to see where USB are in the boot
sequence as not every drive causes this.

What is going on here?

Charlie

Several PCs have a BIOS settings which tell it to place any Flash
drive into the boot sequence. You need to make sure that Floppy drive
A: and your Drive C: is in the boot sequence before the flash drive
settings.

You older flash drive might not "push" your PC to boot from it but
your newer one might.


Okay, that fixes the problem. But I still don't unnerstand the root cause
of why one drive never created a problem and another one did.

Thanks
Charlie

 

[John Wunderlich]

Okay, that fixes the problem. But I still don't unnerstand the
root cause of why one drive never created a problem and another
one did.

A couple of things may contribute to this behavior. Some USB flash
drives mount as "Local Disks" and some mount as "Removable Disks".
Double-click on "My Computer", change to "Details" view, and look at
your disks as you plug them in. See if there is a correlation
between these two types of disks and this behavior.

Another possibility is how the flash drive is formatted. Check to
see if your drives is FAT, FAT-32, or NTFS.

HTH,
John