Problem booting into Windows 7 when external hard drive is plugged in

[Robo7]

Hello,

I hope someone can help… I bought a new Seagate Expansion hard drive with 8GB capacity. I plugged it into the mains, and plugged its USB cable into my desktop computer’s USB port. When I started the computer, everything booted up normally, and I could see that the new Seagate HD was recognised and was working fine. In Windows Explorer, I could copy, paste and delete files normally.

The file transfer rate for copying files onto the Seagate Hard Drive (USB v.30) was about 70MB/S. I thought that was a bit slow, as the Seagate was plugged into the motherboard’s USB port that was USB 3.0, so I was expecting a faster date transfer speed.

After doing some research online, I learned that you can improve the data transfer speed by changing a Policy setting in the Device Manager, for the Seagate external hard drive. By default, the removal policy was set to the “Quick removal (default)” setting. From what I had read, changing the policy setting to “Better performance”, and then in the sub-category, putting a tick in the option that says, “Enable write caching on the device”, can improve the drive’s data transfer speed, so that’s what I did. A dialogue box popped up telling me I needed to reboot the computer for the change to take effect, so I clicked “Yes”.

When the computer switched off, it automatically tried to reboot, but immediately the booting-up process froze, and nothing happened. If I turn off the computer, and unplug the Seagate external hard drive’s USB cable, the computer boots up perfectly, and once I’m into the operating system (Windows 7), all is good. When I then plug the Seagate external hard drive’s USB cable into the computer’s USB port, again all is good, and I can see the drive in Windows Explorer, and I can copy, paste and delete files. Everything is normal.

If I turn off the computer and reboot with the Seagate external hard drive’s USB cable still plugged in, the booting-up process freezes again on the first splash screen.

So basically, I can use the Seagate external Hard Drive normally, but only if I plug it in after the computer has fully booted up. I thought something might have happened to the external Hard Drive after I changed its setting in the Device Manager, so I took it back to the shop where I bought it from, and they exchanged it for a new hard drive… same make and specifications as the original… but the new replacement drive also causes the computer to freeze on start-up. The computer freezes too early to be able to access the bios, but I can access the bios if I unplug the external hard Drive’s USB cable.

What could the problem be, please?

Thank you!
Specifications:

Computer type: PC/Desktop
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V PRO-GEN3
OS: Windows 7
CPU: Intel Core i&-2700K
Memory: 16 GB
Graphics Card(s): Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU II OC 2GB GDDR5
Hard Drives: SSD, OCZ, 240GB, Vertex 3 (boot drive)

[Rustys]

I bought a new Seagate Expansion hard drive with 8GB capacity.

What is the make and model of the drive.

[Robo7]

What is the make and model of the drive.

Thanks for your reply.

It’s a SEAGATE Expansion Desktop External Hard Drive - 8 TB

It doesn’t appear to have a model number, but here’s where I purchased it:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/se...-10231480.html

[Rustys]

I learned that you can improve the data transfer speed by changing a Policy setting in the Device Manager, for the Seagate external hard drive. By default, the removal policy was set to the “Quick removal (default)”

If you undid this and boot with the attached drive, does it work correctly?

[Robo7]

If you undid this and boot with the attached drive, does it work correctly?

I’ve tried going back to the orininal policy setting “Quick removal (default)”, but still the same thing happens when I try to boot up.

[Rustys]

Can you post s screen shot of the settings?

[Robo7]

Can you post s screen shot of the settings?

Here are the original policy settings in the Device Manager:

[ATTACH type=“full”]12017[/ATTACH]

Here’s a Computer Management screenshot…

Disk 0 is my boot drive (Drive C)

Disks 1 (Drive G), 2 (Drive E) & 3 (Disk D) are internal hard drives

Disks 4 (Drive J) & 5 (Drive H) are external hard disk drives

The Seagate external drive is Drive 6 (letter i) - not sure what the EFI system partition is for. My other external drives don’t have that partition (Disks 4 & 5)…

[ATTACH type=“full”]12018[/ATTACH]

[PeterOz]

I would try a system restore to a point before you messed with the policy settings

[Robo7]

I would try a system restore to a point before you messed with the policy settings

I don’t have restoration enabled, so have no restore points, but I do have an Acronis disk image of my operating system from January, so I’ll install that and will report back. Thanks for your suggestion.

If the problem continues, would that rule out a problem with the registry and the operating system?
In other words, would it mean that the only place there is a problem is in the bios?

Anyhow, I’ll install the image of the OS from January and see what happens.

[Robo7]

I don’t have restoration enabled, so have no restore points, but I do have an Acronis disk image of my operating system from January, so I’ll install that and will report back. Thanks for your suggestion.

If the problem continues, would that rule out a problem with the registry and the operating system?
In other words, would it mean that the only place there is a problem is in the bios?

Anyhow, I’ll install the image of the OS from January and see what happens.

Update:

Using Acronis True Image Home, I tried installing the image of the OS from January, but in the recovery console that appears during the booting up process, it says it can’t find any disk drives, which is interesting.

Could this mean that my MBR (Master Boot Record) is damaged on Drive C (which houses the Windows 7 operating system)?

Should I try to repair MBR or could that make matters worse, or is that just not the problem anyway?

[Rustys]

When you open the policy for the Seagate drive that is the way it come up correct.

On thing that can be tried is to remove the reference from the Device Manager properly and have the system rebuild.

Here’s a Computer Management screenshot…

Disk 0 is my boot drive (Drive C)

Disks 1 (Drive G), 2 (Drive E) & 3 (Disk D) are internal hard drives

Disks 4 (Drive J) & 5 (Drive H) are external hard disk drives

The Seagate external drive is Drive 6 (letter i) - not sure what the EFI system partition is for. My other external drives don’t have that partition (Disks 4 & 5)…

Not even close going by what the second image is showing. Some of the drive that you had listed were correct.
Disk 0 is G
Disk 1 is C (OS Drive)
Disk 2 is E
Disk 3 is D
Disk 4 is J
Disk 5 is H
Disk 6 is I

[Robo7]

When you open the policy for the Seagate drive that is the way it come up correct.

On thing that can be tried is to remove the reference from the Device Manager properly and have the system rebuild.

Not even close going by what the second image is showing. Some of the drive that you had listed were correct.
Disk 0 is G
Disk 1 is C (OS Drive)
Disk 2 is E
Disk 3 is D
Disk 4 is J
Disk 5 is H
Disk 6 is I

By removing the reference from the Device Manager, do you mean uninstalling the driver from the Device Manager? That was one of the first things I tried but it didn’t work.

Regarding the second screenshot, I’m not sure what you’re saying. Which of drives were incorrect? Apologies if it’s a dumb question but I’m not that knowledgeable when it comes to things like this. Thanks for the reply.

[Rustys]

Yes removing the drive from Device Manager what were the steps you followed?

When you open the policy for the Seagate drive that is the way it come up correct.

Compare the image to what you typed.

Example

Disk 0 is my boot drive (Drive C)

[ATTACH type=“full”]12038[/ATTACH]

[Robo7]

Yes removing the drive from Device Manager what were the steps you followed?

Compare the image to what you typed.

Example

[ATTACH type=“full” alt=“1684511776551.png”]12038[/ATTACH]

Thanks for pointing out the error.,

[Robo7]

It was only when I changed the setting in the device Manager, as described above that there was a problem. When I changed the setting to “Better performance”, and “Enable write-caching”, it said I needed to restart the computer for the modification to take effect. That’s when I found that when it rebooted, it immediately froze on the motherboard’s splash screen.

Earlier this evening, I used Acronis True Image Home to install a disk image of my operating system from January, earlier this year. When the new image was installed, I restarted the computer with the Seagate Hard Drive’s USB cable plugged in, but it made the boot-up process freeze again, in the same part of the process, right at the start of booting. When I unplug the USB cable and reboot, Windows 7 starts fine, and if I plug the Seagate external hard drive’s USB cable in after successfully booting up, it still works normally.

I wish I didn’t change the setting in the Device Manager, as described above, as that’s obviously what’s the caused problem.

As I used the MBR from the operating system’s disk image from last January, I guess that I can deduct that the problem is not in the MBR, nor in registry, or anywhere in the Windows 7 operating system. The problem must therefore be in the bios?

The only things I can think of that I haven’t tried so far are changing the drive letter of the Seagate USB external hard drive, and completely erasing the drive and reformatting it to NFTS (at the moment, it is exFAT. This would also get rid of the external hard drive’s partition where its MBR is, in case anything bad is lurking there?