External Drive making clicking sound during restart/prior to Win b

[Guest]

I have a Sony laptop using XP Home. Also using a WD 120 GB USB external
drive for data.

During the brief period of the start-up phase, the external drive makes a
clicking sound every second or so, obviously as if it's trying to access
something but can't find it. When the Windows boot sequence starts the drive
light turns off and all is fine. After full boot all works ok too.

Is there any way of eliminating the PC sending a signal to the external
drive during the pre-Win launch sequence. There is a reason I need this
done. My new encryption software wants me to enter a password (prior to
Windown boot sequence) but due to the external drive issue, the keyboard
works intermittently.
If I don't have the USB drive connected the keyboard, then it works fine to
enter the PW. I would perfer not having to disconnect and reconnect the USB
cable every time I perform a re-start.

I would think there is some kind of bias change I can do.

Any suggestions?

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

1. I doubt it, but check BIOS to see if "Legacy USB Support" or something
similar is available, and if so turn it off. Might help, probably won't
(even if it's there, which I doubt.) Just thought that it might be worth a
try.

2. Unless the above works, I don't think there a darned thing you can do to
stop Windows from polling the drive during startup. (Actually, the above
will only maybe keep BIOS from polling the drive. Windows will probably
still do so, even with Legacy USB Support turned off.)

3. The intermittent nature of the keyboard problem suggests a power problem
to me (the drive is sucking a lot of energy when it gets polled.) What's
weird is that this only happens during startup. Possible solutions would be
to replace the drive with a different make/model, or try a powered USB2 hub.
I realize that both of these options are probably worse than simply
disconnecting/reconnecting the drive. If this was a desktop, you would
probably have more than one USB controller available, but this is a laptop,
so...

 

[Guest]

Thank you Gary
Since the keyboard is wireless, I'm sure your right about the power demand
issue. I do have a powered USB hub and will try that for experimentation. I
don't want to mess with the BIOS seeing that it's too far of a long shot.
I use this same drive also on a desktop (also a Sony Viao) and does do this
with that PC. weird.
Thanks again!
Steve