presario will not save boot order change

[David_Samuels]

Recently I replaced my old 2TB WD external HD with a new, 2TB Passport.  Regardless of which USB port I use, the machine will not boot past the memory check with it plugged in, the machine is trying to boot from the external drive.  This is not the case with the old drive.  This BIOS has two boot order screens.  Delete key takes one to the standard BIOS screen.  Under the setup, I have tried all manner of disabling and changing order of drives, to no effect.  F11 at boot takes one to a separate, very abbreviated screen labeled BOOT ORDER.  I can arrow up and down to select the drive I wish to boot from.  The only other selections are ENTER to select and F4 to exit.  There appears to be no way to save the selection and I've tried dozens of other keys.  The selection you make only works for that instance.  It does not affect the other BIOS screen and next time one boots, it returns to the first choice, which is REMOVABLE.  I can find no way to permanently change this first BOOT ORDER screen.  Can anyone help please?  Again, the main BIOS utility has no effect.  The only way the machine will boot is if I disconnect the new external drive.  DS

[redlofredlof]

It appears that the BIOS does not like the new Hard Drive.

In cases like this, you may just need to leave the External hard Drive unplugged during Boot

Or

Try to update the BIOS and see if it helps.

[David_Samuels]

The only update I can find via Google is from some site that is all in Russian.  Do you have a link?  Nothing here on HP's site that I can find.  Only other updates.  Thanks!

[David_Samuels]

The other issue this has created is in my power management setup.  I have basically had to disable all the power saving features or the machine will not wake up if I leave the drive plugged in.  While that's not a disaster, having to leave the drive on the desktop and plug/unplug is such an inconvenience.  Also annoying since the old drive worked perfectly, still does.  Bought the new one simply because the old one is about six years old and is getting a little noisy.   WD is aware of the problem, but has no solution, and their level two tech support could not even tell me what difference(s) in the old and new drives are causing this.  DS

[redlofredlof]

Check if your Hard Drive is 4K alligned

If yes, then this may well be the cause as the older BIOS versions of PC's do not work well with this.

Link: http://www.ccboot.com/how-to-check-whether-the-hdd-is-4k-aligned.htm

New PC's with UEFI BIOS have no issues with Hard Drives of greater disk size that have 4K allignment.

[David_Samuels]

Are you referring to the PC's internal hard drive, or my new, WD external hard drive?  Does the external hard drive being 4K aligned cause the problem with the BIOS insisting on booting from a non-root drive?  Question still remains, how to change the boot order?

Thanks, DS