BIOS Keeps Changing Boot Order Priority

[rotatepod]

(Operating System is XP Pro_SP3)

I recently built a desktop with a Gigabyte mobo.

I've got at least six (I'm afraid to count them all!) external
hard drives. No, I don't collect hard drives like some folks
collect baseball cards. I really need them all for various
business activities. The older ones are USB 2.0 only, while
the newer models have USB and eSATA ports.

The BIOS has a serious problem and I'm afraid there is no fix.
I can't "lock" the boot order. 99.5% of the time you want
to boot from an internal drive with an active partition. There
is a seperate BIOS utility that provides a menu of other
devices you can boot from. As an example, if you boot
from a CD the BIOS will return to the normal boot order
on the next reboot.

Each time I plugin and power up one or more external drives
the boot order changes. Its a nightmare! There is no operating
system on any of these external drives.

I'm about to run a BIOS info utility from Gigabyte. There is a
more recent BIOS flash for this mobo, but I doubt if it will fix
this problem.

If I was dealing with software instead of firmware I'm sure there
would be applets, files, or hacks that would prevent these constant
boot order changes.

I did the usual Google search and found a few posts on other forums
about this problem. I also know there are websites that specialize in
all things related to the BIOS. Believe it or not, someone said this
problem is actually considered a "feature" of this mobo.

If you're a BIOS guru, or know where I can find one please point
my browser in the right direction.

[Chupa]

i had this exact same problem. I never found any solution. I just got in the habit of changing it in the bios after i knew i pluged a new hard drive in.

most bioses let you press something like F10 during POST to manually select a boot device for that session. Its not a fix but it would allow you to quickly pick your internals for boot.

[haklesup]

Its a wild guess but you might try setting the HDD particulars instead of leaving it on Auto (as most people do). I know it shouldn't matter with externals but...

Take a look for BIOS Overlay's and bootloader programs.

[reloadron]

Just out of curiosity:

The older ones are USB 2.0 only, while
the newer models have USB and eSATA ports.

OK, so you always boot from and want to boot from the same hard drive and you never boot from any of these external hard drives correct?

On the drives that have the eSATA feature you do or do not use the eSATA? You always use these drives connected via USB?

Now if you never boot from a USB drive you may want to go into your BIOS and make sure the boot from USB option is disabled. That option should be in there somewhere and it varies from machine to machine.

Ron

[rotatepod]

If the whole world decided to junk their USB drives in favor of
eSATA I guess that would be ok with me. There is no doubt
that eSATA drives and their controllers process data at amazing
speeds. I'm not sure if disabling USB and running eSATA drives
only would be the solution. This mobo lists everything in the
main BIOS setup. If its going to scramble the boot order it
probably doesn't matter if its USB or eSATA.

(Remember the old mobo's that could only recognize a floppy
disk or an internal drive as a boot device. We all wanted a more
flexible BIOS that would see a wide range of devices.)

I thought this BIOS flaw was extremely unusual. I was wrong!
I spent a little more time googling. I came up with a long list of
posts on numerous forums about this problem.

The question I have is why would any BIOS be deliberately
configured to behave this way? It makes absolutely no sense.

If you want to boot from any kind of media except the active
partition where your operation system is installed, you can
always use the seperate boot menu and make your choice.
Otherwise, the BIOS should always boot from the default
partition where there is actually something to boot from!

I never thought I would say this, because I have generally
liked using and fixing all the different problems that computers
throw at us. The fact is I'm tired, very tired of dealing with
computer flaws that have become worse, not better as the
years have past. These damn machines have beaten me,
almost to death.

[Janitor Tzap]

Don't feel too bad rotatepod, your not alone in this.

I've been working with, and on computer's since the Old Trash 80's came out.
And the Old Apple II's.

A lot has changed in the Computer Industry, some good.
But, a lot of it not so good.

My biggest gripe is the fact that the information supplied with most Mother Boards is very limited.
The manufacturer expects that the person putting together the system will know all the new abbreviations and terms.

Seems you have to be a bit of a detective and linguist to decipher the manuals that you get with any piece of hardware for your system.

I don't know how old your Mother Board is....
But have you checked the manufacturer's website for a BIO's update, or BIO's Patch?

If there is, down load it and READ INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY.
BIO's upgrades have gotten a lot easier.
But, If you mess it up during the FLASH PROCESS.
You will end up with blank BIO's, and a non-functioning computer.
So be extra careful when doing it.

I've only had one bad experience while Flashing a BIO's.
And that's because I lost power when I was in the middle of doing it.
Lucky for me, I was able to pop out the BIO's Chip from the same mother board.
I then used it to re-flash the BIO's that got wiped.
By using a ROM Burner I borrowed.
{Dodged the bullet there.}

Well good luck to you.


Signed: Janitor Tzap

[rotatepod]

More than one person has told me to flash the BIOS.
The hardware manufacturers usually say if you're not
having problems, don't do a flash.

I've flashed all sorts of BIOS chips. Some in CD and
DVD burners, as well as several mobos. I can't remember
if these updates made any noticeable difference. A lot of
expansion cards have some kind of BIOS too.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just keep flashing all this
hardware every few months, instead of buying new stuff
all the time.

OK, I'll flash this Gigabyte board. The firmware that's on
the BIOS right now is not that old. If I'm reading the info
on the Gigabyte website correctly, all the flash will do is
allow you to use some of the newer CPUs.

[evahle]

I never thought I would say this, because I have generally
liked using and fixing all the different problems that computers
throw at us. The fact is I'm tired, very tired of dealing with
computer flaws that have become worse, not better as the
years have past. These damn machines have beaten me,
almost to death.

Hi rotatepod. Actually you are gutsy enough to try new and exciting things with your computer. More than most people would even try! I do this myself and always have to fix up my computer when I'm done, but this is a good thing! I know more than anyone else in my family about computers and I'll bet when you are done with this problem, you'll know more than most people about it. Keep learning and growing. You should be very proud of yourself.

If the whole world decided to junk their USB drives in favor of
eSATA I guess that would be ok with me. There is no doubt
that eSATA drives and their controllers process data at amazing
speeds. I'm not sure if disabling USB and running eSATA drives
only would be the solution. This mobo lists everything in the
main BIOS setup. If its going to scramble the boot order it
probably doesn't matter if its USB or eSATA.

I doubt very much that reloadron meant to scrap your usb drives. He knows quite abit about computers, as I have observed from his previous posts. His questions and possible solution was valid. I don't consider myself a Bios(cmos) guru, but I've worked with cmos setup when ever I need to.

After reading your post I decided to recheck my setup(mine requires me to press F10 when booting up), and I selected from the menu to backup up my cmos(memory) to a floppy, just in case I screw up something(I can always restore it when I need to).

Next, I checked my boot order and found that it only has floppy, HD C:, CD and Network selections. Mine is set for Floppy first, Then HD C:, then CD, then I disabled the Network selection.

On yours, I believe that reloadron meant for you to disable the usb selection for booting up on usb. This doesn't disable usb ports or your usb drives, however. It would be at least worth a try. Don't you think?

Good luck with it and let us know your results.
evahle

[reloadron]

Maybe a "My Bad" on my post. I did not mean to disable USB. My intent was to have you take a lookie in the BIOS for the option to boot from USB devices and disable it.

Most newer motherboards have the option to boot from USB or even network drives. I suggested you disable this option if it is not used.

The reasoning here is simple. The machine I am currently on offers the option to boot from USB and till recently I had that option disabled. The motherboard is an Intel D955XBK board. When selecting the boot from USB option the board will first look at the USB ports for bootable media. Generally this is just fine as it looks for bootable media. However, sometimes if during boot the system starts looking it may find a USB device, even a non-bootable device and just hang on it. Generally things like printers are not an issue but removable storage can be an issue. Just a quirk.

Recently I did enable the feature on this old beast because I created a bootable little 2 GB pen drive with a small install of Unbuntu on it. Works pretty cool. Like booting into Linux without having a Linux install on the machine.

The point I tried to make in my post was that if you never boot from anything USB then disable the USB boot feature, do not disable USB.

Ron

[MrAl]

Hi there,


You probably checked for this but just in case i'll mention it...

Some MoBo's have a separate setting for what drives will be
considered bootable and what drives wont. You can turn 'off'
the drives you dont want to boot from so they wont even appear
in the list of boot drives when you go to change the boot order.

For example, with my MoBo (ASUS) i have to go into the bios to
tell it to allow a USB device to be allowed to boot from, otherwise
it will not even show up on the boot order list.

Hope this helps.

Just curious, what happens when you plug in several little flash drives
into USB ports before bootup?