External Hard Drive Questions

Question

I just bought an new X51, and have a boot issue whenever I try to do a cold start up of my computer. If I leave the WD drive plugged in as I did on my previous Dell pc, it takes about 5 minutes before I get a 'Starting Windows' splash screen. Afterwards it performs correctly as far as I know. If I do a warm boot or a restart I don't have that problem, only when I leave the WD External drive plugged into a USB on the back of the PC and start the computer from scratch. I installed the newest drivers, and most current WD software, and still have problems. Anyone know of a possibly work around? Is this a boot order issue? Thanks

PhoenixBennu · Answer

It is possible that it is a boot order issue, and that would be easy to check in the BIOS setup. As I do not have x51 handy, a knowledgeable guy DELL-Chris M provided the boot order you should be seeing:

Go into the Bios- Boot. The default order is as follows =
1st Boot = USB Floppy
2nd Boot = USB Hard Disk
3rd Boot = USB CD/DVD
4th Boot = Hard Disk
5th Boot = CD/DVD
6th Boot = Network
7th Boot = UEFI

Move Hard Disk to 1st Boot. Press F10 to save and exit the Bios.

I hope this helps to clear up the 5 minute boot delay for you. :)

rnicolosi · Answer

I thought that there might be something corrupt in the eternal drive, so backed up the files I wanted to keep, and reformatted the drive. Once I did that, I installed the WD backup software that included a diagnostic program to check various 'health' issues on the drive and they all returned normal. I have not done the most comprehensive one yet, but will over the weekend. What puzzles me the most, is that when I perform a warm reboot I get none of the issues that I get when doing a cold start. Cold starts are where all of the problems are for me. Even during the initial setup out of the box it was like turtle speed, however I did have the external drive hooked up and had not installed any of it’s drivers. Possibly setting up this chain of events that continue today. Should I have the external drive plugged in during the BIOS check?

PhoenixBennu · Answer

A good hard drive scan is needed every once in a while. i dump so much random stuff to my hard drives that I often find myself with corrupt files here and there. Have to reset a few drives every now and then, usually couple times a year. However, this should not really be your issue. It can contribute to many issues, but then best thing to do is plug in everything you want to have, go into the BIOS, make sure it is set to the order listed before, and then test. I should load easier that way.

Let me know how it goes.

Locked Topics – Alienware General

External Hard Drive Questions

Was this post helpful?