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External Hard Drive Preventing Boot Windows 10 - Alienware Alpha
Hello,
I am having trouble with my Alienware Alpha system. I have a 2TB Seagate Portable External Hard Drive. Whenever it is plugged into the back USB 3.0 or front USB 2.0 ports, it will not allow the system to boot. Rather, it will hang on boot up. The drive is formatted as exFAT so that it will work across Mac and Windows. It was freshly formatted so no hidden files are on it besides the media files that I keep on it that are very important to me.
This Alienware is hidden in a closet for a home theater, and it is very cumbersome each time it reboots to open it up, unplug the external drive, and plug it back in once it has POST BIOS.
Does anyone have any advice on how I can possibly get the external USB 3.0 Hard Drive to work on boot if plugged into the Alienware Alpha?
I have tried the following:
a) disabled any boot devices besides the internal SSD I have in it
b) Disabled Secure Boot (and enabled it, still has same issue so I kept it disabled)
c) Disabled USB Boot option in BIOS
d) Disable USB Power Management within Device Manager for USB Root devices
e) Removed all hidden files (including searching for autorun.inf) within the External Hard Drive
Note - I don't see a Legacy USB option or a USB Emulation option in BIOS for the Alienware Alpha. I heard those are two possible ways to fix this issue.
Note 2 - I have read this thread and it seems this person fixed it by updating drivers for Renesas and Intel Management Engine. I am not sure if the Alienware Alpha uses the Renesas since the driver links are outdated (2013) and I don't see Renesas in the Device Manager.
en.community.dell.com/.../19483147
Thank you very much.
osprey4
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April 27th, 2016 17:00
Hi Delluser915390,
What OS? Have you tried updating the chipset driver? Tried a USB 2.0 port?
DellUser915390
4 Posts
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April 30th, 2016 18:00
I am using Windows 10 Professional 64 bit. It exhibits the same behavior on USB 2.0 ports.
DellUser915390
4 Posts
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April 30th, 2016 22:00
I have updated all available drivers, including the latest chipset and ME drivers on the support page under Chipset category here.
I am not sure if it s a driver issue though, as it happens with the 2.0 ports and at the point it is freezing, pre-POST, the drivers aren't even loaded.
My current most likely solutions could potentially be - find a way to disable USB Legacy Support in the BIOS. My issue - I don't see this option anywhere in the BIOS. Could anyone point me to this?
DellUser915390
4 Posts
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May 8th, 2016 14:00
any updates?
sirr2r
2 Posts
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May 9th, 2016 03:00
Hey,
I do same thing even i created alienrespawn factory recovery but the Samsung EVO 850 1 Tb getting error everytime the recovery transfering the OS to the SSD. Honestly am really disappointed in my new alienware 13 R2. high specification for a laptop but very slow booting the OS & games really *** :(
To DELL admin & support please make a solution on this issue. cheers
Tentacule
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January 16th, 2019 00:00
Hello,
Same problem here : Alienware alpha with a western digital USSB elements 4TB plugged in (exFat format), prevents the boot.
Is there a solution?
If I format it as NTFS, will it work?
Thanks