Does not start up (W2K)

[Wanseele]

I am running W2K with SP3 installed since almost a year. Works fine. I recently purchased a USB 32 Mb Memory Stick device. When I plug it in my desktop (USB 1.1) W2K does not start up. After the Intel Board screen is shown all I get is a black screen with the cursor blinking in the left top.
When I unplug the memory stick, it starts up normally. Also, when I plug in the stick after it has started I can access the stick as a normal removable device.
Has anybody run into this problem and if yes, how did you solve it. I'd rather not yet install SP4 until a couple of months to make sure it is stable.
So the question then is : what to do to make it work.
Tx

[jdharm]

Check your system BIOS for the boot order and boot devices. I have seen some systems that have an option for booting to a usb device. Make sure this isn't the case on your system.

Josh
<a target="_blank" href=http://www.jdharm.net>www.jdharm.net</a>

[Andy-S]

You need to get a BIOS update for your system board to correct the problem.

There are at least two problems that can cause what you are seeing. Some Disk on Key devices provide a 32 bit descriptor to the BIOS and the BIOS is looking for a 64 bit one. What ends up happening is the BIOS just sits in a loop waiting on the correct information coming back. Windows does not look for a specific size and initializes the device correctly.

The second problem is that the BIOS sees the USB device as a bootable device and trys to boot from it. This can be corrected by disabling the USB device in the BIOS.

Cheers
Andy