External HDDs causing slow boot

[mothermachine]

Hi all,

I have a couple of external USB HDDs (WD 1TB) which, in an ideal world, I would like to leave plugged in permenantly - I use them every day (backups and storage). But leaving them plugged in when booting causes massive delays, sometimes minutes, sometimes it won't even boot with them in. They cycle up and down, make noises etc. My guess is the BIOS is looking for an OS install on both of them before trying the main internal OS drive.

Is there any way to config the BIOS to totally ignore external HDDs so it boots right into Windows quickly? I'd rather not have to unplug them every morning before booting.

Cheers,

 

[mothermachine]

i've just left it with a boot priority set to CDROM, HDD, HDD. So it first looks for an OS CD/DVD, then it *should* just boot direct from the internal HDD. but in reality these externals are still being "examined" before this kicks in. really not sure why...

these externals also have an annoying habit of ramping up and down for about 15 seconds roughly once an hour within Windows, freezing the entire PC for about 20 seconds (there are two of them). really irritating. doesn't happen in games, only in windows and apps.

confused...

 

[mothermachine]

Cheers! I've set sleep time for HDDs to Never instead of 20 mins default. That should fix the slowdowns in Windows. I assume it's safe to do this?

I'll give USB Legacy support disable a go next too.

Thanks