I think this is a different twist on all the "NTLDR is missing" boot failures due to the presence of an USB device. Whenever I try to boot with and external drive connected via USB (including an iPod) I get the NTLDR failure.

After trying to reconfigure the boot sequence, I still had the problem.

Normally my boot sequence is:

1st Hard drive
2nd CD
3rd floppy

with no option to enable or disable USB boot devices.

I discovered that if I go intp the BIOS editor ** BEFORE ** the NTLDR failure that the Hard Drive is replaced by the USB device, and of course that will lead to the NTLDR failure. So, it appears that my system discovers the USB device before my hard drive and automatically replaces the hard drive entry with the USB device.

Does anyone know now to prevent the BIOS from doing that?

Have you chose WHICH harddrive to boot to? There should be a choice in the BIOS on a different screen than the boot order.

BTW, what good is having the CD drive after the HDrive in the boot order. If your computer fails to boot to the Harddrive would you then want to boot to a CD? Do you keep a CD in the drive at all times? I suggest having the CD drive before the HDrive or if you don't like the little bit of extra time that takes then set the first device disabled, second boot device harddrive. Same thing goes for the floppy. IMHO you have your boot order totally backward. Mine is disabled (so floppy can be enabled without need to change all), CD drive, Harddrive, other.

I'm not sure I agree with your sequence logic. It seems more logical to start with what does boot and move to the alternates if that fails as opposed to starting with a device that will (almost) always fail it time and finally coming to the one intended as the boot device. I think however your method does allow you to override the hard drive booting by simply inserting a floppy or CD which I never need to do. In either case, I appreciate the advice but don't think it matters with regard to my specific problem.

I took your suggestion to look for a harddrive boot selection and found nothing that I could recognize as such a choice. It seems that my BIOS detects three types of devices: hard drive, CD (I have two) and floppy and then lists them as options for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd boot device, disable is also a choice. If a USB device is connected it chooses that as the hard drive option and fails. If it isn't it chooses my only hard drive as the option and boots.

It's this behavior I'm trying to prevent / override / etc.

On page 26 – Chapter 2 of your MBoard manual look at 2.6.2. This is where you choose which harddrive to boot to first. That assumes you have more than one.

2.6.3 configures bootable removable devices. Set them all to disabled and you shouldn’t have your current problem any longer.

You are right. It was tricky. If you don't enter the BIOS at the right time, there is only one hard drive in the hard drive section. Finally, I caught it at the right time and both the hard drive (the real one) and the USB drive were there. The USB drive was first. I reversed them and it works properly now.

Thanks!!

Your welcome. When attempting to boot into the BIOS or safe mode the technique to use is continous tapping of the key.