Travel Technology - What happens when one reboots with a USB device attached...

I just google searched and didn't see the answer to my question so am hoping one of you smart people can help. My computer did an auto restart (dang software updates!) Anyhow - I attached my camera through a USB cable to the laptop. Laptop had appeared to finish the booting process but not sure. After about 10 minutes hang up I pressed the off button and restarted.. all the while the camera was attached.

Lo and behold.. I cannot get past the new Blue Screen of Death. Restarting in Safe Mode, etc won't work. Am I hosed? I haven't tried the repair disk yet but my coworker says this might be pointless. Anyone have an idea of what happened?

TIA - F70

I just google searched and didn't see the answer to my question so am hoping one of you smart people can help. My computer did an auto restart (dang software updates!) Anyhow - I attached my camera through a USB cable to the laptop. Laptop had appeared to finish the booting process but not sure. After about 10 minutes hang up I pressed the off button and restarted.. all the while the camera was attached.

Lo and behold.. I cannot get past the new Blue Screen of Death. Restarting in Safe Mode, etc won't work. Am I hosed? I haven't tried the repair disk yet but my coworker says this might be pointless. Anyone have an idea of what happened?

TIA - F70Do you have any low-level disk encryption software installed by chance?

Do you have any low-level disk encryption software installed by chance?


Hi Oneant - I do not know. Is there a way to tell? Sounds like this could be an issue?

Try resetting it. There's probably a pinhole somewhere on the bottom that you can put a paper clip through. Don't push too hard, just enough to move the switch 1/16" or less.

Try resetting it. There's probably a pinhole somewhere on the bottom that you can put a paper clip through. Don't push too hard, just enough to move the switch 1/16" or less.


Resetting.. what? The only pin-hole thing I know of is on the odd drive.. but I don't think that is the issue.. ?

It's hard to imagine any relationship between rebooting problems and having a device attached to the USB port.
What operating system?
Did you shut down and take the battery out, then replace the battery and try to start it again?

It's hard to imagine any relationship between rebooting problems and having a device attached to the USB port.
What operating system?
Did you shut down and take the battery out, then replace the battery and try to start it again?

No I did not.. but who knows. I just restarted the system.

It's hard to imagine any relationship between rebooting problems and having a device attached to the USB port.
What operating system?
Did you shut down and take the battery out, then replace the battery and try to start it again?Common with certain drive encryption applications (i.e. PointSec). In laymans terms, they ride over the BIOS but under the OS. Newer laptops that typically are set to automatically check for bootable USB devices may have issues if said devices are left connected. The latest patches/updates to the encryption s/w should correct this behavior.

If you don't have any encryption s/w installed, then the issue could be completely unrelated to the USB device. Coincidences have been known to happen. :D

I presume that you're using XP. On that assumption, right when the BIOS screen disappears on boot up, press F8 repeatedly to get to the advanced boot menu. Choose Safe Mode. If you can boot successfully, reboot and boot normally. If it still BSOD's, repeat the F8 step and choose Last Known Good Configuration. If you installed anything (driver, app, etc.) prior to rebooting that caused the BSOD, this should bounce you back to the config on your last successful boot.

If that doesn't work, you need to have someone locally check it out.

EDIT: Noticed you already did Safe Mode so ignore that part. But I'm not sure what all you did that was covered by the "etc."

It may be that your BIOS is set up to look for 'other bootable devices' such as an external USB device, first in it's boot up order.

When it doesn't see an OS on these 'other devices' it usually goes to the next device in line such as a ROM drive or the hard drive.

You can try detaching all external devices, and then going into your BIOS when you boot, set the BIOS back to all 'default' settings and then reboot.

This may work.

Good luck.

Try resetting it. There's probably a pinhole somewhere on the bottom that you can put a paper clip through. Don't push too hard, just enough to move the switch 1/16" or less.

:confused:

Sounds like you are referring to his camera, not the laptop.

Did you happen to see what the BSOD actually shows? If you can see the error message or address it will be a lot easier for us to help you.

One piece of advice I have is that if you ever have a system crash you should run CHKDSK on your disk prior to doing anything else. Sometimes problems like what you have seen are as a result of bad disk sectors. CHKDSK can be used to find/fix some of these errors. From within safe mode open a command console and run "chkdsk /f c:" It will ask if you want to do this at the next reboot. Tell it yes and reboot.

If you can't get into safe mode to do this, then find and boot off of of an XP installation CD and enter the recovery console. Run "chkdsk /r" When that is done, reboot.

Let us know how it goes!

It may be that your BIOS is set up to look for 'other bootable devices' such as an external USB device, first in it's boot up order.

When it doesn't see an OS on these 'other devices' it usually goes to the next device in line such as a ROM drive or the hard drive.

You can try detaching all external devices, and then going into your BIOS when you boot, set the BIOS back to all 'default' settings and then reboot.

This may work.

Good luck.
^ computers are often set to look to boot via usb first. Ive seen this happen many times. Disconnect everything and try what he suggested above.

All - thank you for your responses. I had tried everything - disconnecting device, removing battery, starting in safe mode (+ all other modes!). The only thing I hadn't tried was the repair function on the OS disk. I ran that as I slept last night and like magic - problem solved. Should have done that before I posted but regardless it is good to have insight as to the functionality behind all this stuff!

The only thing I hadn't tried was the repair function on the OS disk. I ran that as I slept last night and like magic - problem solved. Sometimes that won't work either and a utility like SpinRite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite) is needed, followed by the repair function you used. SpinRite is *really* great!

Sometimes that won't work either and a utility like SpinRite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite) is needed, followed by the repair function you used. SpinRite is *really* great!

Thanks for the assistance XYZZY - I did indeed use the chkdsk functionality (thanks for the reminder!) but used the /r command behind it (thanks to the only good nugget of info from aforementioned google search). :)