PC trying to boot from external usb drive instead of internal hard disk on startup

[rw_2012]

Hi, I have just taken delivery of a refurbished Pavilion p6793. I noticed that if I have my external USB drive connected the system doesn't boot. It comes up with a can't find loader message and asks me to hit ctrl-alt-del to restart. I suspect this is because it's looking for the O/S on the USB drive instead of the internal hard-disk. Can you tell me what I need to check and change to allow me to boot from the hard-disk even if the USB hard drive is connected. Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

You probably need to go into your BIOS by hitting the F10 key at the HP welcome screen and changing the options in the boot menu to allow for the hard drive to boot first.

Then you can set the boot order for the other devices as you please.

Make sure you save your settings where you made the change and again when you exit.

When you specifically want to boot from a device, hit the F9 key at the HP welcome screen and you will be presented with a one-time boot options menu where you can select from any of the bootable devices listed.

Paul

[Hanspuppa]

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rw_2012 wrote: Hi, I have just taken delivery of a refurbished Pavilion p6793. I noticed that if I have my external USB drive connected the system doesn't boot. It comes up with a can't find loader message and asks me to hit ctrl-alt-del to restart. I suspect this is because it's looking for the O/S on the USB drive instead of the internal hard-disk. Can you tell me what I need to check and change to allow me to boot from the hard-disk even if the USB hard drive is connected. Thanks.

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Hello rw_2012, It seems that the boot order in the BIOS is set to the USB drive. It does appear the system is booting to the external USB drive and looking for the operating system, which is not there.

You might try going into the BIOS when the system boots and change the boot order to the first boot device being the CD\DVD Group and the second boot device being the hard drive group.

If this does no allow you to boot to the hard drive, the change the order for the first boot device as the hard drive group, save these settings and reboot the system. If everything is working normally, the system should now boot to the operating system on the hard drive.

[old_geekster]

Already answered.

[rw_2012]

Thanks very much for the input. The problem was that in the HDD Group under Advanced Boot options the external drive had been set as the #1 drive and the internal drive as #2. So I reversed that and everthing is fine. CD/DVD is first group and HDD is 2nd group but with the internal drive as #1 device now.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Enjoy!