Solved WD "My Book" 12TB USB drive hangs Windows 11 Pro on boot

Both with my previous operating system (Win-10) and with my current operating system (Win-11) when the WD drive is plugged in to the USB port the computer hangs on booting and will not boot until the power is shut down, the drive is unplugged, and the power button is pressed to restart. Once restarted, when the drive is again plugged in to the USB port it works normally. With Win-11 the boot attempts end in a failure to find the operating system, as if the computer is looking on the WD drive for an operating system. Both machines are Dell XPS desktops, the current one being a Dell XPS-8950. I suspect this may have something to do with the use of UEFI instead of BIOS on Windows 10 & 11. I've tried just about everything I can think of to change the boot order, or to totally ignore booting from a USB drive, but without results. How can I reconfigure my computer so that I don't have to keep unplugging the WD drive?

Most computers have a setting in the BIOS / UEFI that will go through various items to check which to boot from, which is thee default setting. To avoid such problems as you describe in the past, I learned to change that setting so that my normal Windows installation drive is the first item selected to boot from, thereby saving a bit of time (because it is not scanning for bootable devices, as well as Being a good system check - if it has an issue, such as my primary drive not being available or being corrupted, I can then go into the BIOS and pick another device to boot from - only when I need it.

This is also a good safety feature, because unless someone else goes into the machine and changes the same setting, they cannot automatically boot from another device (even maliciously). Thus, I also password protect the BIOS / UEFI.

What you'll want to look for is something that looks like 'boot order', in your system, and remove all devices except the one HD / SSD that you actually boot from. Then it will only try booting from that device, and should (probably) fix your issue as well.

Caveats:

1. You will have to remember that you've done this in order to be able to reverse the change (or, at the very least, add another device to boot from) if your primary boot device stops booting.
   
   
2. If you password protect the UEFI / BIOS, you'll need to make sure you remember it exactly - if forgotten, the only way to clear the password is a full CMOS clear (which completely resets the BIOS / UEFI). If you are on a laptop, this can end up being a massively PITA procedure (like my Dell Latitude - it requires nearly complete disassembly in order to be able to reset the CMOS, which entails disconnecting the CMOS battery from the motherboard and then powering it on so it gets reset).
   
   
3. This is normally a very safe thing to do, but a lot easier is to just simply either disconnect the drive before rebooting (disconnect it from the USB connection - it can be still connected to power, as long as the computer itself cannot see it it won't try to boot from it).

For your machine as listed in your profile, see How to Access, Navigate, or Update the BIOS or UEFI | Dell US on how to enter the UEFI, or go to the product page for your machine to get specific instructions. Also, the User Manual should provide all the available UEFI options for the current version of the UEFI firmware for your machine.

HTH

The solution may be the stated above, change the default boot order.

But this shouldn´t happen. The "checking" of the external disk for a OS should finish in a few seconds, then the boot should proceed with the next item in the boot list. Or something like this should appear in the screen:

Checking media

Checking media (fail)

And the boot would continue.

That this doesn´t happen suggests some problem with the WD disk.

What is said in the above post is all true. However, I have encountered systems that just flat out would not boot if an external drive was plugged in, even when usb boot was completely disabled in bios. It's more common with usb flash drives, though. As for as WD, the following is copied and pasted from the WD forum:

It sounds like the partition on your Passport is set to active, which is a flag that tells the computer to boot off the drive. If no bootable files are found, the computer normally should bypass the drive and continue to load Windows. However, freezes as well as non-system disk messages while booting are also common. Formatting may not remove the active flag. Right-click on the start button and select Disk Management from the menu. Locate your Passport drive and make sure the partition isn’t set as active. Also, in your BIOS, double check and reconfigure the device order so that your internal hard drive is listed before the USB devices. That way it will boot first before trying to boot from the Passport.

I guess you connect your external drive to a USB 3.0 or higher port to be faster. The computer may have trouble identifying your disk in the USB 3.0 port at boot, hence the delay. You either have to remove it and connect it after you are in Windows or connect it on a USB 2.0 port and check if there is any delay at boot. I would connect a USB extension cable at the USB 3.0 or higher port and have my external disk disconnected at boot. I would only connect it in Windows. The extension is to avoid looking at the back of the computer to find the USB port, simply connect at the other end at the front. Also probably the hard disk is a large 3.5" with a power adapter and on/off switch. In that case it is even easier. Simple switch off your hard disk when booting and switch it on again in Windows.

Anibor_11 said:

The solution may be the stated above, change the default boot order.

But this shouldn´t happen. The "checking" of the external disk for a OS should finish in a few seconds, then the boot should proceed with the next item in the boot list. Or something like this should appear in the screen:

Checking media

Checking media (fail)

And the boot would continue.

That this doesn´t happen suggests some problem with the WD disk.

Click to expand...

Yes, but with an external disk that large, fixing it would require migrating the data on it to another drive first in order to preserve the integrity of the drive.

And why do you need to have the system check for bootable devices on a regular basis if you only boot from a single device in all cases to begin with?

glasskuter said:

Also, in your BIOS, double check and reconfigure the device order so that your internal hard drive is listed before the USB devices. That way it will boot first before trying to boot from the Passport.

Click to expand...

Ayup.

I've run into this sort of problems for years, which is why I keep suggesting to change the boot order in the BIOS / UEFI firmware in the first place.

As an added bonus, it's better security. No random USB device that is bootable will boot given any attempt to restart the computer.

As a test to the OP's issue, I connected my WD 12TB My Book drive, left it connected, rebooted and.... Windows Rebooted with the drive still plugged in. In fact, I've done this in the past without issue as well. This is the drive I have....



Windows version build in avatar.

Not saying the OP isn't experiencing something differently, just pointing it's not so cut and drive that an external drive connected to a PC will prevent it from booting. And I have the same drive as the OP.

BTW a "MY Book" is NOT a Passport. Different drives.

If it is connected to a USB 3.0 port (blue) without proper configuration in the BIOS, the computer may have trouble identifying the device and hence the delay. Switch off while booting or connect it to a USB 2.0 port (black)

Or you could get one of these.

If you mean the removable hard disk tray, it is a good idea for easily removing and swapping internal disks, but the OP has a USB external disk. The easiest is to switch off from the on/off switch (if applicable) or disconnect during boot. He can either use a front USB port or a USB extension cable to avoid searching at the back of the computer every time.

johnlgalt said:

Ayup.

I've run into this sort of problems for years, which is why I keep suggesting to change the boot order in the BIOS / UEFI firmware in the first place.

Click to expand...

Speaking on Gigabyte's behalf (boards I use, though I'm 99.9 percent sure others (Intel based) do the same... If the drive doesn't contain an operating system, there's no chance the BIOS will select it as a boot device, so that's not an issue. It may see a thumb drive as shown here, but it won't attempt to boot to it because it has no OS.



Additionally, it does not see my WD MY Book drive, even though it is connected, so there's no issue of it ever trying to boot there. Here you can see the WD MY Book connected, and yet it does not show as a boot option in the BIOS.

spapakons said:

If it is connected to a USB 3.0 port (blue) without proper configuration in the BIOS, the computer may have trouble identifying the device and hence the delay. Switch off while booting or connect it to a USB 2.0 port (black)

Click to expand...

That doesn't matter and the BIOS doesn't distinguish. Mine is WD is connected to a USB 3.0 port because it is a 3.0 device. There was/is no configuring in the BIOS to be set. Windows boots just fine for me with MY WD 12TB MY Book drive still connected without issue. I just did it (rebooted) again with it installed as I wanted to get a few BIOS screen shots in answering @johnlgalt and @glasskuter thoughts.

All that said, wholeheartedly agree with john the Boot Drive should always be set to the first option.

Throw a bootloader of some type on there - even accidentally - and see what happens.

You and I are savvy enough to never do such a thing. Not everyone is. Therein lies the problem.

---

(Addressed to the readers in general from here on out, not Dru2 specifically:)

But, OTOH, the same people are also not savvy enough to know/ understand the benefits of futzing around in the BIOS / UEFI firmware and changing that boot order in the first place.

It's a matter of education, and the more people know, the better things can get. Yes, the boot order is a small, seemingly inconsequential change to make - but it gets the OPs problem fixed, until it can be examined in more detail to understand why it is occurring in the first place. It's no different than unplugging the drive from USB, except it has to be done every single time the computer is rebooted / booted up. The boot order change is a one time deal, until you need to boot from another device.

Dru2 said:

just pointing it's not so cut and drive

Click to expand...

Lol - ISWYDT!

johnlgalt said:

Throw a bootloader of some type on there - even accidentally - and see what happens.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but the BIOS will eventually boot to the first drive it sees with the OS.

And the only time to change the boot order is if you have a need to boot to another drive. Otherwise leave things alone

I have a suspicion that the issue has to do with the actual External drive. When rebooting or powering on your computer, WD DAS drives are a bit slow to initialize and for this reason Windows gets confused.

I remember having similar issues with my WD MyBook RAID Drives, on some computers.

I just noticed in the screenshot of disk management that that WD drive is formatted as exFat. I know it's supposed to be compatible, but possibly formatting it as ntfs might solve the problem.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my original post - I've read (and reread about 4 times) all of your responses. My external drive is the exact one pictured above by Dru2; both computers I've had the same issue with are Dell XPS desktops, one with Win-10 and the new one with Win-11; the BIOS only has three choices for boot configuration: Boot Loader (I selected that one), NIC IP4, and NIC IP6 (I'm assuming the last two are for booting off a network, i.e., as a workstation). If I boot into UEFI (hold down the shift key, right-click on the start icon, and select reboot from the pop-up menu) the UEFI menu doesn't have a specific boot order menu where you can tell the computer to always boot from the c: drive. It's a little hard to understand, since you have to select the "recovery" UEFI option in order to get to the boot loader. [Not to change the subject, but is it normal to have THREE recovery partitions on the boot drive (see my screenshot in the original post)?]

I contacted Dell, but they wouldn't talk to me unless I first gave them $99, and there's no guarantee they would know more that the people here, nor is there any guarantee that I'd even be able to understand their broken English! I have an open support issue with WD, where I'm optimistic that they've seen this issue before. Rest assured that if/when they get back to me, I'll post what they had to say.

And finally, the last comment (by glasskuter) is the most ominous, and something I've suspected since I started looking at this issue. WD formats these drives in exFAT in order to make them compatible for Windows AND Apple products. I've always suspected that could be at least part of the problem but moving 12 TB of data would take days to accomplish, and not something I would try first.

To enter the Dell UEFI/BIOS you press the F2 key repeatedly while starting the PC.

There is an option to see the boot sequence.

I took a look at the service manual for the XPS8950 and noticed this:
_


Notice that on UEFI Boot Path Security that the option to alway prompt the user to enter a password when booting from the F12 Boot Menu. I wonder if it would make any difference if that was set to Never.
It shouldn't affect a normal boot, but stranger things have happened.

Here is the service manual with UEFI/BIOS options:

Yours is not an isolated case. WD even has an advisory about it. Do a web search of "computer won't boot with external hard drive plugged in" You will find reports on the WD forum, Dell forum, Microsoft forum to name a few