See the attached image of my computer screen.

As I was plugging in a USB 2.0 device (mp3 player) to charge the player my desktop went away and up popped the screen as shown below.

The bad thing is..... when I click on the keys they that are recommended (at the bottom of the screen), nothing (and I mean nothing) happens....."Del", "F9", "F12", and "End". The screen just stays there....as if frozen in time.

The computer is still running.....but I can't get any response by clicking on the keys they suggest........and I'm afraid to just turn the computer off......at least not before I hear from some of you guys.

I'd appreciate a quick response......as I'm sitting here just sweating it.....don't know what to do.

Help me....someone.

That's your boot screen. Funny that the only hard drive showing up is the Maxtor on IDE channel 2 set up as a slave drive. Do you have any other hard drives in this computer?

If nothing else is working, I see no alternative to turning off the machine and trying to reboot. That would be the first step anyway.

yeah i noticed that also but was thinking maybe it's a SATA HDD?

Anyway yeah i would shut it down and see if it will boot up.

Is this your new build burnselk?

[quote=Kerry56;2040660]
Yes, I have two internal SATA HDD's and today I just connected (via USB) a brand new external Maxtor OneTouch 4 (250GB) which is a backup drive......funny this problem happened this evening huh?

The computer has been working fine.....but I did have the Maxtor backup drive connected to the computer via the a USB right beside the USB that I was plugging the MP3 into.

I'd like to hear from you again Kerry........thank you for helping me..will await your response......Plus I had the external backup Maxtor set to backup "automatically" at 10 PM each day....and it could have been 10 PM when I had the problem......just wanted to add this as a thought.

Plus, the yellow/amber HDD activity light is lite solid.....no blinking.....totally solid.

Thanks to you too Bob, would you and Kerry please stay with me until I get this resolved tonight?

Yes Bob, this is the newbuild.........thanks for remembering.....you helped me before. Glad you jumped in. Stay with me please.

So have you restarted as suggested?

I agree with the others. Unplug the USB mp3 player and shut the computer off. Then turn it on and you should find yourself back in Windows.

My computer will fail to boot (gets stuck at BIOS screen) some times when I have an external USB device connected. Scares the hell out of me before I realise what I need to do.

RM

Not yet LOCOENG.....I wanted to add to my message to see if that made any difference in Kerry and Bob's initial response.

Does everyone agree that I should shut the computer down and reboot?

That's the way I feel right now RichMan....and thanks for adding your comments.....these all help me think I don't have a real unique problem.

If you are stuck at the BIOS screen, there really is nothing else you can do but shut the PC completely off and try to reboot. You've already lost any unsaved data that might have been open in Windows. So, nothing at all to lose.

RM

I think that is the only option at this point burnselk (shutting down and rebooting). But Richman has a good idea to unplug the mp3 player first.

Shutting down and restarting i don't think will hurt it all. Richman has a good idea to unplug the mp3 player first.

And yeah i'll be around for awhile if you need more help.

Will unplug both USB devices and reboot.....or try.....and let you know in a minute what happened.....please standby.....I really am concerned.....maybe too much.

But your being here is what I need....just one minute or two at most.....I'll be right back here.

Rebooted.....now it's stuck at this screen.....see below......and the HDD activity light is off; not even flickering....but the computer is still running......and I unplugged the MP3 player and the new external Maxtor OneTouch 4 backup drive.

What now?

Having attachment errors.....standby.....can't seem to get the screen picture to load.

You mention 'new external Maxtor...' When was this added and what is on it? What kind of drive has your OS boot partition on it? Is it showing up in the normal BIOS scan or any other BIOS scan?

RM

See the attached image of my computer screen....if I can get it to load.

Rebooted and it's still frozen at the boot screen.....but it now shows both internal SATA HDD drives as they should be ....and no HDD activity light at all.....none.

But the computer is still running.....and I did disconnect the mp3 and the brand new (today) external Maxtor OneTouch 4 HDD.

Coincidence or what?

Does seem odd.

I had my sound card quit for no reason last night and spent most of today getting it to work again

Had to look at the calender to make sure it's not Friday the 13th.........

I think the next thing to try is to clear cmos on the motherboard. Do you know how to do that burnselk? There should be instructions in the manual for your motherboard.

Normally you turn off the computer, unplug the power supply, remove the computer motherboard battery, then move a jumper. Leave it like that for a minute, then put the jumper back in its original position. Then replace the battery and restart the computer.

But look at your manual for exact instructions and for the location of the cmos jumper. This should put the motherboard back at its normal, default settings in the bios.

After you try Kerry's suggestion make sure you go into your BIOS and set everything back to the way you want it because it will be back to default settings.

burnselk it's been awhile now.........how's it going?

If you can get into windoze look in the device manager and see if you have any yellow "!"

Guess I'll try Kerry's suggestion tomorrow and see what happens.

Is there some way tomorrow evening I can get back in touch with one of you to help me do the CMOS thing and reset the BIOS....I've NEVER done that but am a willing learner.....as long as I have a someone like you guys around I won't have any worries doing it. I know about the CMOS battery...and the jumper....it'sjust that I've never done that before.

Bob, I don't recall making any changes in my BIOS when I was getting this newbuild up and running.....but what do I know? I wouldn't know what to set....but I did take a picture of each BIOS window and saved it.....just in case. That might help.

Hope to see you guys tomorrow evening.....I have 3 grandkids playing baseball and soccer tomorrow.....and they may spend the night (look out!!!).

I may have to wait until Sunday evening....how can I get in touch with you Kerry56 and/or Bob on Sunday evening......or can I?

P.S. I turned the computer off again and left it off about 2 minutes but nothing changed except as I said, now it's showing both internal SATA HDD's...one as Master and one as Slave.....doesn't show any errors....but it's still froze up. Those keys aren't working yet either.

Just a thought, could I have shorted the two USB connector as I was attempting to plug in my mp3 player.....if so, could that have cause this problem?

And, how about the fact that my new (installed software and did a backup of my documents today for the first time).....and it was set to do another backup at 10 PM tonight.....maybe that new external Maxtor caused the problem....such a conicidence it seems......that's way it makes me wonder, did I have the problem right at 10 PM and sometime didn't like that happening????

burnselk i'm around quit a bit so i should be around. I'm busy tomorrow afternoon but so are you

Hope you have the manual for the jumper to move cause there are more than one jumper on my board and i'm sure yours does also.

If you never changed anything in the BIOS then you should be ok with default settings.

And yeah you might have had some static electricity in you that might have jumped from you and did something maybe.......my wife blew up 2 sticks of RAM in my old build and i had to replace them from static electricity

Bob and I are usually around here in the evenings. I'm normally around a little later than when Bob shows up though. If you have a specific time in mind, I can show up then. But clearing cmos is a fairly simple job, and my other post is the normal way it is done. It is always best to follow the instructions given in the manual though.

Don't know that this will solve the problem, but it is the obvious next step to take.

I don't know for certain what caused your snafu, and I'm a little reluctant to speculate from long distance. Guessing on this stuff probably won't help you much.

Let us know when you want to try to do this and I'll try to be here, for moral support if nothing else.

yeah Kerry is right........it is hard to troubleshoot things when your not actually there.

And look in your manual for the jumper. It is easy to do like Kerry said.

If you don't have the manual you can probably find it online at your mobo's website.

You didn't by chance wipe your hdd did you? why I ask...is you mentioned software that came with your Maxtor OneTouch 4....
Take out your main hdd and hook it up to another comp and see if it will boot up from that drive.

Guess that's a possibility hobo.....my other (old) computers don't have SATA connectors so I use my Master HDD in them.....besides I used the computer all day AFTER I did my new Maxtor install and my FIRST backup.

I'm beginning to think it was NOT a coincident that I had this problem around the time my brand new External Maxtor OneTouch 4 was ready to begin a second backup of My Documents.....only My Documents.....but not the entire HDD.

What I can't understand is that there is no HDD activity light flickering or even on....now.....before when I sent the first pictures the light was solid and no flickering at all as if something was running....but what?

This is the screen I now have.....assuming it will upload and attach this time. As you can see, it's "frozen" at a point where it was "preparing to start setup".