Using PLoP To Be Able To Boot My 1 TB WD External USB HDD (my passport)

[fms]

Hello EveryOne
Thank you for this wonderful boot manager.
The reason why i would like to use PLoP is because i have a 1 TB WD External USB HDD (my passport), which doesnt boot when my internal HDD is connected. The Intel DG33 FB BIOS just boots from the internal HDD. After a lot of struggle i realised that the porblem is with the "timing power" of my 1 TB USB HDD. Meaning when i start my PC, the USB HDD takes sometime to get powered on, and the BIOS in meantime just goes to the next boot device which is the internal HDD. So using PLoP i was hoping to be able to give time to 1TBHDD to power on and from the PLoP menu select the USB 1TB.
I downloaded the PLoP and went through the main webpage, but just wanted to clear a few doubts before i go through this.
On my desktop PC i have WIN XP PRO installed on C:(ntfs) and have D:(Downloads)(ntfs), E:(Personal)(ntfs), H:(Virtual Stuff)(ntfs)(normal logical partition, not a bootable one) & another partition which is the ACRONIS SECURE ZONE (a 15 GB partition, i think in fat32). It's a 500 GB internal hardisk.
As i use the Acronis True Image Home Edition (removed all operating system backup worries for me) , i have made a full backup of my operatin system C: (Win XP Pro) on this ACRONIS SECURE ZONE partition which is hidden from Windows. And I have activated the Acronis Startup Recover Manager (meaning when i start the PC, before the Windows XP Pro boots from the internal hardisk (C drive), if i press the F11 i can go into Acronis True Image Console and restore\backup image from console. If i don't press F11 it will boot from C drive.
(1)If i install PLoP will i still be able to enter into the Acronis Recovery Console by pressing F11 or will this option dissappear( be erased) by installing PLoP boot manager.
(2)Also if i install PLoP (this is just to confirm), can i uninstall it incase something goes wrong
(3)What is the advice which you would suggest to install PLoP. Install it by transferring the
"plpinst.com" to the C drive and than double clicking it. How do i go about it in installing PLoP
(4)I do not have a internal DVD-Rom, Rewriter on my computer. I am using an external USB DVD writer. So by installing PLoP, does it mean i will not be able to boot WIN Xp bootable CD, Live XP DVD, Multiboot DVD etc which i have. Meaning i will not be able to use any bootable DVDs ? (as i don't have an internal DVD Rom/writer and as i use an external USB DVD writer and i think there is a problem with the USB DVD ROM when PLoP is installed).
(5.)Is there a workaround so that i can disable/deactivate PLoP temporarily so that whenever i want to boot from external USB DVD writer, i will be able to do it.

Hope it is not too much for me to ask you

[Elmar]

hi,

(1)If i install PLoP will i still be able to enter into the Acronis Recovery Console by pressing F11 or will this option dissappear( be erased) by installing PLoP boot manager.

the f11 key will not be available anymore. i think, the recovery option could be still available with booting the recovery partition by plop. but you have to test it. but see below

(2)Also if i install PLoP (this is just to confirm), can i uninstall it incase something goes wrong

a full restore as it was before the install will be (currently) only possible with the floppy install.

(3)What is the advice which you would suggest to install PLoP. Install it by transferring the
"plpinst.com" to the C drive and than double clicking it. How do i go about it in installing PLoP

there is the hard disk install with plpiinst and as alternative you can start plop with the windows boot menu.
see http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html#runwin
when you start the plop boot manager with the windows boot menu, then you will be still able to use f11. the plop boot manager can be started on demand from the windows boot menu.

(4)I do not have a internal DVD-Rom, Rewriter on my computer. I am using an external USB DVD writer. So by installing PLoP, does it mean i will not be able to boot WIN Xp bootable CD, Live XP DVD, Multiboot DVD etc which i have. Meaning i will not be able to use any bootable DVDs ? (as i don't have an internal DVD Rom/writer and as i use an external USB DVD writer and i think there is a problem with the USB DVD ROM when PLoP is installed).

the boot manager does not change the bios. all bios features are still available.

(5.)Is there a workaround so that i can disable/deactivate PLoP temporarily so that whenever i want to boot from external USB DVD writer, i will be able to do it.

you can use usb dvd int the same way as it was before the plop installation with the bios.

best regards
elmar

[fms]

Hello Elmar
Wanted to thank you again for this wonderful boot manager, PLoP.
I followed what you said and the same thing was told to me by another esteemed member in another forum to try PLoP from Windows Boot Menu. And i was able to boot the 1TB WD external USB HDD (my passport) using PLoP. Have been for 3 months struggling to find a way to boot this 1 TB HDD and finally yesterday i disconnected my internal HDD and was only than able to boot the 1 TB. Now that was a BIG problem (if i could only boot 1 TB by disconnecting my main internal HDD where my OS is present, as than i could not use it for any repairs).
But with PLoP my problem got solved.
Also the option to use PLoP on demand( from within Windows Boot Menu) is wonderful. It's like a kind of a portable boot manager which doesnt install anything on your HDD (correct me if i am wrong in this assumption ( i am talking of the Windows boot Menu option..... rite ?? ). so you can call PLoP whenever you want it, and otherwise if you don't want to use PLoP go about booting from your HDD the normal way.

Another observation which i made was that when i started the PC the first thing that came is Acronis True Image option (F11) to start the recovery console which allows me to restore backup. Only after i did not choose that option i got Windows boot menu from which i had the choice of either booting directly the internal HDD OS or starting PLoP. This was the doubt which i was having today which you cleared for me in your previous post, by providing the Option to start PLoP from Windows boot menu and hence the Acronis recovery console remains intact and is not erased etc.
Once again Thank you for your wonderful boot manager and for your advice.

[fms]

Was just wondering.....i have tried to get Hiren Boot CD to work on my 1TB HDD, after  booting the external usb HDD from PLoP. It goes about getting the Hiren Menu in DOS mode, but when trying to load from RAM it gets stuck with a blinking cursor. Was wondering could this have something to do with my using PLoP boot manager, meaning the DOS mode of Hiren not working, because the MiniWindows mode of hiren works even after PLoP.
In dos mode the hiren loads it to the RAM, could there be something restricting hiren to load into the RAM.
Also been having some problem with UBCD bootable CD, gives something like flushing write error. Could this have anything to do with the loading of the 1TB via PLoP boot manager.

[Elmar]

i never tried hiren. usb disk access is limited to read only access.

[fms]

Hello
I have tried to load a bootable USB before starting PLoP and after starting PLoP and the results were that before loading PLoP i had no problems with UBCD, Hiren and DBAN isos. But the problem after loading PLoP was the in
UBCD :Error:LBA Cache Flush :Write Error
Hiren:Gets stuck at Creating 100MB ram
DBAN:Reading sectors error (EDD)
Just my observations incase it helps in someway

[fms]

Hello Elmar
Is there a way by which i can make the USB disk access read and write, so that UBCD will not give that error and maybe Hiren will work.

[Icecube]

UBCD doesn't write to disk (at least not the part where you see the menus).
I can boot UBCD fine with PLoP.

Meaning when i start my PC, the USB HDD takes sometime to get powered on, and the BIOS in meantime just goes to the next boot device which is the internal HDD.

What do you mean with this?
1) Power on USB HDD and power on PC (only a very small time difference between them)
2) OR power on USB HDD, wait some seconds so USB HDD is running at normal speed and them power on PC

Does it fail to boot in case é) too (without using PLoP)?

When I do 1) with my PC, it will hang most of the time when the BIOS probes for the USB HDD, which isn't ready yet. 2) works.

[fms]

Hi Icecube
Nice to hear from you.....
I have a DG33 FB intel motherboard which has booting support from USB.
Using a bootable pendrive 8GB i can access all the bootable ISOes. For this i first connect my pendrive and than start the PC (start button) and it does not hang and directly boots from the bootable pendrive. Same way if i try with my 1 TB Western Digital (My Passport) USB hardisk, i connect the USB HDD, than press start button, the PC does not hang, but at the sametime it does not boot from the bootable 1 TB USB HDD. It boots from the internal HDD. In another forum somebody else told me that he too was facing the same problem with the Western digital HDD and that it was a powering (timing ) problem. The 1 TB USB HDD is powered by a USB cord not by an external power supply. If it had been external power supply i could have powered the USB HDD first waited for some time before starting the PC so that the USB HDD had sufficient time to get powered. Meaning maybe it is slow to boot or something like slow to get powered. But since my 1 TB HDD is usb powered the moment i start the PC, the USB also starts but the light blinks for sometime before getting stable. A stable light means it is powered (i think so).
Now what i did was press F4 when PC starts to get the boot menu option (not the BIOS setting option for which) it is "Delete".
There in the boot menu option i could see the 1 TB WD USB HDD. So i select this 1 TB HDD to boot. But still nothing happens. The PC goes on to boot from internal HDD.
By pressing the boot menu option i gave time to 1TB HDD to get powered, but still it will not boot from that.
So only if i use PLoP boot manager, than PLoP forces the 1 TB to boot, bcos only than the 1 TB boots without a problem.
All this i did by trial and error. meaning practically tried it.

UBCD
I have put UBCD in a pendrive for testing this. Now the pendrive boots without a problem. So i do not have to use PLoP for a pendrive. When i boot from pendrive without using PLoP, than UBCD works fine.
But if i use the same pendrive with the same UBCD after PLoP than UBCD give this error
"LBA CACHE FLUSH:WRITE ERROR"

But as i said , i want to use the 1 TB HDD, and it is not booting without PLoP. So i have to use PLoP. But when i use PLoP, i get this UBCD error. If i dont use PLoP i dont get this error.
Same thing happens in hiren . If i dont use hiren works. If i use PLoP hiren gets stuck on this screen
"Creating 100 MB Ram drive as R:"