Problem booting off USB stick

[AndrueCope]

A slightly odd one this. I'm migrating my Win7 installation from my old FitPC2 to the FitPC3. Since I have to do a sysprep I decided to clone the main HDD to a spare drive and effectively 'recover' the drive to spare media before monkeying with it.

Anyway here's the sequence I used:

1. Backup main HDD to external drive.
2. Swap out main HDD for spare HDD
3. Boot off recovery media and restore to spare HDD.
4. Reboot, run sysprep etc. etc.
5. Reboot and go through 'New installation process'.

Up to now all is good. In fact it's all done and running. However I now want to put everything back on the main HDD and I've found something odd. The machine will no longer boot off my USB stick unless I also unplug the external drives. If the external drives are plugged in I just get 'Invalid partition table'. I've checked and neither of the external drives has an active partition so I'm stumped.

It may be that the recovery console will detect hot plugging of external drives so I could unplug them, boot, then plug them in. But that's a pain even if it actually works. If I can't boot off the recovery media I don't have a viable backup solution. Obviously it's something that happened while Windows 7 was completing installation but I can't see what.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[gabrielh]

Have you set a correct boot order priority in the BIOS? Put your usb thumb drive first in the list, and then reboot.

[AndrueCope]

Have you set a correct boot order priority in the BIOS? Put your usb thumb drive first in the list, and then reboot.

I can't. The USB stick and external USB drives are in a subgroup and I can't change the order within the subgroup. I can only move the entire group relative to other boot devices.

[gabrielh]

Can you post a print screen of the boot order?

[AndrueCope]

Can you post a print screen of the boot order?

Not easily, no. I'd have to bring my server down. But from memory the boot order menu is like this (--- added for the forum, these lines are indented on the BIOS screen):

1. USB HDD
---1.WD????
---2.WD????
---3.KOMEXRAM
2.ATA HD0

Notice that the external USB drives (both Western Digital) and the USB stick (KOMEXRAM) are all listed under 'USB HDD' as a subgroup. I can move 'USB HDD' above and below ATA HD0 (the normal boot drive) but I can't change the order within the subgroup. I'm also puzzled why it tries to boot off an external HDD anyway. Neither of them have active partitions.

[gabrielh]

You can try to switch USB ports between the USB HDD and the USB stick. That will change the boot order.

[AndrueCope]

You can try to switch USB ports between the USB HDD and the USB stick. That will change the boot order.

Thanks, I'll try that.