Win 2000 Professional - Can't boot with connected USB hard drive

[GastroScout]

Hi all,
I recently purchased a 120 GB external USB hard drive for daily backup of 3 PCs in a home network. The HD (pre-partitioned into 2 60 GB segments) works fine and is recognized immediately, rare enough. But I can't boot my PC with the external HD connected. The system just locks up at the initial boot screen.

How do I get my deficient Win 2000 Professional to boot from my internal C: drive even if there's an external storage device connected?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Jeff Zalkind

 

[Bobg1]

Go into bios and check the boot order, it might be set to look for something on the usb first. Change it do the drive you boot from.