BIOS vs. Drives

[CathodeCathay]

This i5 HP desktop is driving me nuts!  It has a Samsung SSD as SATA Drive 0, and it boots quickly and accurately every time provided:

1.  There is no USB drive plugged in

2.  There is no internally-mounted drive other than the Samsung

In either of the above cases, the boot hangs, and the machine will not start.

To troubleshoot, I've gone into the BIOS and deleted all boot devices BUT the SATA Drive 0.  Then the machine gives me a "this is not a system disc" error and won't boot at all.

What am I doing wrong?

[WAWood]

@CathodeCathay 

The first issue is that anything plugged into a USB port is going to be seen as a bootable device and the PC will try to boot from it.  I have that same problem with an HP laptop and the ONLY solution that works is to have nothing other than mouse and keyboard plugged into the USB ports when the laptop boots.

Is the SSD a SATA SSD connected through a cable? Or is it an M.2 SSD connected directly to the motherboard?

If the first, then when you want to connect a second SATA drive, switch the connectors and see if the problem continues.

[CathodeCathay · Accepted solution]

@WAWood -

First of all, thank you very kindly for the response.  I appreciate you taking the time!

I finally concluded that you're right - this machine will NOT boot with USB devices connected.  Despite turning off the "boot from USB device" option in the BIOS, the machine insists on checking the USB devices, and when it finds one, it just locks.

The SSD was an aftermarket one that I installed internally (replacing the original 500 GB conventional drive).

I tried swapping all SATA connectors without any result other than the machine then refused to boot at all, giving me a "This is not a bootable disc" error.  The internal SSD must be connected to the dark-blue SATA controller, or the machine won't boot from it at all.

I finally solved the problem entirely.  I hooked up the external HDD to my MacBook Pro and I'm selling the HP desktop.  Problem solved.

Thanks again for your generous feedback - I appreciate it and it did help!

Cordially - CathodeCathay