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What is it with systems randomly not booting if certain USB devices are connected? This has been "a thing" for at least a decade; I've seen it on more systems than I can count. Getting this right shouldn't be rocket science!

I most recently got "had" by this earlier today. I recently cut over to a new(er) desktop system, but the scanner is connected to the old one for now. To switch it over I need to either rearrange my office to relocate the scanner, or get a USB extension cable, since the new system is on a table next to the opposite side of the desk and the existing USB cable doesn't reach.

Well, I turned the scanner on before hitting the power button on the system, and following POST the system just sat at a blank screen. After hitting the reset and power buttons a few times in vain (and uttering a few choice expletives about the seemingly dead system), it occurred to me to try booting with the scanner powered off. The system came right up, and the scanner still works fine too, as long as I wait to power it up until after the system boots.

WTF? The scanner doesn't even look like a mass storage device (I'm quite familiar with the common "leaving a thumbdrive plugged in can prevent booting" issue), so I have no frikkin' idea why it was preventing the system from booting.

Sometimes I still wish that Firewire had won instead.

yeah it can be a PITA getting certain motherboards to boot from a USB storage device too. Definitely an area that hasn't been done well

If this had been some 10 year old motherboard I would've just shrugged and moved on. While it's not new by any means (it was my primary desktop for ~3 years), it's modern enough that it has UEFI firmware instead of a legacy BIOS... hard to believe that anything made in the past half decade still exhibits silly problems like this.

I had some device do the exact same thing to me around a year ago... I distinctly remember the black screen, no POST, the diag LEDs halting without an error code, and almost concluding something major had died before figuring it out. I can't remotely remember what device had caused it though.

Oh, along the same vein.... after the Win 10 Anniversary update I got around to plugging my Kindle Touch in to add some ebooks and recharge it. Used the system for most of the evening, then went to bed with it still connected. Woke up and found the system blue screened regarding partmgr.sys.... apparently the vast majority of the Kindle ecosystem was rendered deadly to Windows 10 machines that had the Anniversary update.   

USB preventing a POST is unacceptable.  Things like that should be a relic of the past, much like PATA cables/jumpers causing the same, or IRQ/COM conflicts.

As a bit of a sidenote, we have Ivy Bridge machines at work which completely refuse to boot from any USB flash device I have on-site.  I haven't had a chance to look into this further because I was pressed for time and able to accomplish what I needed through other means, but it's another situation which shouldn't occur.  

Kougar wrote:

Oh, along the same vein.... after the Win 10 Anniversary update I got around to plugging my Kindle Touch in to add some ebooks and recharge it. Used the system for most of the evening, then went to bed with it still connected. Woke up and found the system blue screened regarding partmgr.sys.... apparently the vast majority of the Kindle ecosystem was rendered deadly to Windows 10 machines that had the Anniversary update.   

Good thing my Kindle has WhisperNet so I don't need Windows to put books on it.

Sounds like a bug in firmware in USB Controller thinking that scanner is a "mass storage device" or some weird power issue going on.

I never had any problems with USB devices preventing POST unless it is an external HDD or thumb drive that was dying/dead.

bthylafh wrote:

Sometimes I still wish that Firewire had won instead.

Firewire hasn't exactly flawless either. It had its set of stupid issues. The main reason that remained a niche for life was bottom line costs. It is the same reason why Thunderbolt will end-up meeting the same fate.

The Egg wrote:

As a bit of a sidenote, we have Ivy Bridge machines at work which completely refuse to boot from any USB flash device I have on-site.

They aren't Dell machines by any chance are they ? I was frustrated by this for a while until I eventually cracked it and went looking for a solution. After a bit of digging I finally found out that they won't boot from a USB flash drive if there are ANY other USB devices connected, including keyboard or mouse. You have to either use a PS2 keyboard and mouse or disconnect all other USB devices, let the machine boot from the flash drive then reconnect any USB devices you want to use. If you go the disconnect route this obviously means that you will need to set the boot device order in the BIOS settings to boot from the USB device first as you won't be able to use a USB keyboard to select the boot device on a one-time basis. Even if they aren't Dell machines give that a go in case it solves your issue.

Schmoo wrote:

The Egg wrote:

As a bit of a sidenote, we have Ivy Bridge machines at work which completely refuse to boot from any USB flash device I have on-site.

They aren't Dell machines by any chance are they ? I was frustrated by this for a while until I eventually cracked it and went looking for a solution. After a bit of digging I finally found out that they won't boot from a USB flash drive if there are ANY other USB devices connected, including keyboard or mouse. You have to either use a PS2 keyboard and mouse or disconnect all other USB devices, let the machine boot from the flash drive then reconnect any USB devices you want to use. If you go the disconnect route this obviously means that you will need to set the boot device order in the BIOS settings to boot from the USB device first as you won't be able to use a USB keyboard to select the boot device on a one-time basis. Even if they aren't Dell machines give that a go in case it solves your issue.

They are indeed Dell, and that seems like just the sort of stupid thing which might hold it up.  Thanks for the info.  You would think they'd have issues like that sorted out by now.

JBI, I feel your pain. For the better part of a couple decades, USB issues (almost universally related to power delivery) have been the #2 bane of computing right after wonky power supplies.

I too could go on a rant about all the funky USB behavior I've found over the years.

The Egg wrote:

They are indeed Dell, and that seems like just the sort of stupid thing which might hold it up.  Thanks for the info.  You would think they'd have issues like that sorted out by now.

Yes, I was rather amazed when I found the solution as I first came across the issue on OptiPlex 960s which are from the Core 2 era and from what I've read it still occurs with machines produced years after that so it's either intentional by design or they are seriously hopeless at working out bugs. I was frustrated by it for ages but it was always just quicker to spend a few minutes burning a DVD to get the job done rather than invest time into working out why the flash drives didn't work. One day I wanted to be able to boot up a Linux distribution from USB flash drive so I went looking for a solution and when I found it I just sat there shaking my head.

Give it a go as I'm pretty confident you'll find that is your issue. Also, it's up to you, but you may as well leave the USB flash drive set first in the boot priority list of the BIOS as the only way a user is going to accidentally boot from flash drive is by leaving a bootable one in the machine but having the USB keyboard and mouse disconnected for some reason when they turn the machine on.

"As a bit of a sidenote, we have Ivy Bridge machines at work which completely refuse to boot from any USB flash device I have on-site."

There is another possibility if unplugging all of your USB devices does not fix your problem. Depending on how boot is configured in your UEFI, you may need to use a USB drive specially formatted as a UEFI bootable.

My sys won't boot if certain USB devices are connected after I reset the TPM, which is weird.

Schmoo wrote:

The Egg wrote:

They are indeed Dell, and that seems like just the sort of stupid thing which might hold it up.  Thanks for the info.  You would think they'd have issues like that sorted out by now.

Yes, I was rather amazed when I found the solution as I first came across the issue on OptiPlex 960s which are from the Core 2 era and from what I've read it still occurs with machines produced years after that so it's either intentional by design or they are seriously hopeless at working out bugs.

That's a real corker, but it's definitely not universal. I've booted an Optiplex 980, a T5400, a T5500, and a smattering of Dell laptops from USB several times without encountering this issue.

However, if memory serves, the Optiplex 9x0s were released around the time that Dell first switched over to UEFI BIOS (likewise, the T5400 does not have UEFI but the T5500 does, similar age range) so it's possible that it was an early bug of some sort.