Your post is not clear on exactly what happened with "last night Dell technical support I can no longer use my external hard drives", but the unplugging drives thing, while usually a bug, is real. They can interfere with what the system thinks should be booted and how it should be read. 1) Did you update your BIOS? 2) You might check your BIOS Setup to make sure that the Hard Drive is first in the Boot Sequence. You might also try setting the USB ports to ON without BIOS support, if you have such an option, and/or changing USB emulation types.
My computer would not boot up. Dell told me is was due to my external hard drive being plug in during the boot. I beer had that happen before with a previous Dell. No believable explanation was give as to why this was happening other than I must pay for Dell to upgrade the software for several hundred dollars. I have owned computers for 20 years and never had this boot up problem.
We tried some of your suggestions without success. I can unplug the external drive and everything works fine. It just seems rather odd that this is happening after 20 years of using a computer. I still think they pushed an update to my computer. I can't believe they would allow such a problem to exist.
So does this mean all Dell computers are this way? Dell continues to sell external drives. It sounds like a monopolizing maneuver to me.
No, not all Dell computers do this, and it doesn't happen only on Dell computers.
What is your BIOS version? Dell hardware updates are offered but not forced onto the system.
The fact that you have been using computers for 20 years is irrelevant. USB isn't that old, and it hasn't been a bootable technology for even 10 years. There are varied settings on different makes and models, BIOS versions, and external drive controllers - occasionally there are incompatibilities, sometimes there is an oversight on an update, etc. It isn't a systemic problem or strategy with Dell computers - just one type of issue that sometimes arises in the computer industry.
If adjusting the settings in the BIOS doesn't work or a recent BIOS or other hardware update was applied, I might recommend flashing back to another version of whatever hardware was updated (BIOS, external drive, etc.).
When your external hard drive is plugged in do you get a black screen with a small white _ at the top left corner? If so just press esc and it should continue to boot.
theflash1932
9 Legend
•
16.3K Posts
0
September 28th, 2014 16:00
Your post is not clear on exactly what happened with "last night Dell technical support I can no longer use my external hard drives", but the unplugging drives thing, while usually a bug, is real. They can interfere with what the system thinks should be booted and how it should be read. 1) Did you update your BIOS? 2) You might check your BIOS Setup to make sure that the Hard Drive is first in the Boot Sequence. You might also try setting the USB ports to ON without BIOS support, if you have such an option, and/or changing USB emulation types.
KenMartin23220
3 Posts
0
September 28th, 2014 18:00
My computer would not boot up. Dell told me is was due to my external hard drive being plug in during the boot. I beer had that happen before with a previous Dell. No believable explanation was give as to why this was happening other than I must pay for Dell to upgrade the software for several hundred dollars. I have owned computers for 20 years and never had this boot up problem.
We tried some of your suggestions without success. I can unplug the external drive and everything works fine. It just seems rather odd that this is happening after 20 years of using a computer. I still think they pushed an update to my computer. I can't believe they would allow such a problem to exist.
So does this mean all Dell computers are this way? Dell continues to sell external drives. It sounds like a monopolizing maneuver to me.
theflash1932
9 Legend
•
16.3K Posts
0
September 28th, 2014 23:00
No, not all Dell computers do this, and it doesn't happen only on Dell computers.
What is your BIOS version? Dell hardware updates are offered but not forced onto the system.
The fact that you have been using computers for 20 years is irrelevant. USB isn't that old, and it hasn't been a bootable technology for even 10 years. There are varied settings on different makes and models, BIOS versions, and external drive controllers - occasionally there are incompatibilities, sometimes there is an oversight on an update, etc. It isn't a systemic problem or strategy with Dell computers - just one type of issue that sometimes arises in the computer industry.
If adjusting the settings in the BIOS doesn't work or a recent BIOS or other hardware update was applied, I might recommend flashing back to another version of whatever hardware was updated (BIOS, external drive, etc.).
Philip_Yip
9 Legend
•
16.1K Posts
0
September 29th, 2014 09:00
When your external hard drive is plugged in do you get a black screen with a small white _ at the top left corner? If so just press esc and it should continue to boot.
KenMartin23220
3 Posts
0
September 29th, 2014 09:00
Yes I have seen that. Most of the time it is just the white Dell logo. Thank you.