PC won't boot with Drobo connected.

[Mary K.]

I have a Drobo attached to my PC running Vista 32Bit. It works fine, except for the fact that my computer won't boot up when the Drobo is attached and powered on. When I try to boot up I get a message that says "Invalid Partition Table". I pressed the Esc key while booting up, and the boot sequence is as follows:

DVD Drive
Mirror RAID Hard Drive
DVD Drive
Trusted Mass Storage Device

I understand that the Trusted Mass Storage Device is my Drobo (so says Data Robotics tech support), and they suggest that I should remove it from the boot sequence. They think that the PC is trying to use the Drobo to boot up. However, they said I should contact Microsoft to find out how to remove the Drobo from the sequence.

I would like to do this myself, but I could use a little guidance. Anyone?

Thanks, Mary

[E.J. Peiker]

You should remove it from the list as it is not a bootable device but it also should not do what it is doing. It suggests a bug in their firmware but regardless. Simply removing that should eliminate the problem. Also why do you have DVD drive on the list twice?

Removing it is quite easy. When you boot your system there is a key that allows you to enter system set-up or BIOS. It is sometimes F2, sometimes DEL, sometimes F10 (depends on whose BIOS is on the system) and could be something else but it tells you right on the boot screen. This will enter you into the Bios. go to the boot tab and one of the entries there will be the boot sequence. Simply follow the on-screen instructions for changing it. Note all of this must be done via the keyboard as your mouse driver doesn't load until Windows loads. It is actually quite easy and you wont have any trouble doing this.

[Mary K.]

Yes, I agree that is a bug in their firmware, as it does the same thing if I attache it to may laptop. I have two DVD drives on my desktop, so I guess that is why both show up in the list.

I'll give it a try and see how it goes. Thanks for you help.

[Mary K.]

I think the problem is finally solved. I could see the boot menu by tapping the Esc key, and when it came up the Drobo was there, last in the sequence. I selected it, but there was no option to delete it from the list. I then restarted and tapped the F10 key to get that screen. The Drobo did not show up in the drive list on that page, but I noticed a boot tab and clicked on it. In that boot list the Drobo was on top as a floppy drive (there is no floppy drive in my PC). Again, I could not figure out how to delete it from the list. However, I was able to move it to the last position in the list, and I am now able to boot up with the Drobo attached.

Thanks, E.J.

[E.J. Peiker]

That will do it. No problem with the Drobo then, just your BIOS misinterprets it. Well it could still be a problem with the DROB firmware I guess. In any case, your laptop is probably set-up the same way.

[Joseph Martines]

May I suggest that you contact Drobo.

Their support is very helpful.

Just call them. Their eMail support sucks.

There may be a firmware upgrade.

[Mary K.]

I talked to Drobo tech support several times about this, and they just told me that it was a problem with my computer, and that they couldn't help me fix that -- this even though they had me attach the Drobo to my other computers with the same result. This was a problem when I originally purchased the Drobo, and they told me that the hard drives I had installed were not approved by them. So I returned the drives and purchased the drives that they recommended. When the problem was still there with the new drives, they told me that there was nothing else they could do, and that I should contact Microsoft.

Since I recently reinstalled my operating system, I thought the problem might go away. But no, it was still there. So I called tech support again. They had me install the latest firmware (just released today), but that didn't help. In fairness, they did try so help, but in the end I had to resort to outside help. It's nice to have such a great site as NatureScapes -- users of these forums have helped me resolve technical problems several times over the last few years.

[Joseph Martines]

Mary:

Thanks for your insight.

Computers are way beyond me. The amount of their technical and electrical anomalies are only for the bold technologically insighted amongst us.

I'm happy that you found a work around and I'm sure that this type of anomaly can occur on both platforms (PC & Mac).

[E.J. Peiker]

I'm happy that you found a work around and I'm sure that this type of anomaly can occur on both platforms (PC & Mac).

It's not a workaround, the BIOS was configured improperly on her PC. It did exactly what it was supposed to do given the boot sequence that her PC was set-up for.

[Mary K.]

Yes, apparently when the Drobo was installed it was seen as a floppy drive. Over the process of trouble shooting the problem, Drobo tech support had me uninstall and reinstall the Drobo several times, and each time it ended up at the top of the boot sequence. Wonder why that happened?

[E.J. Peiker]

Installing the DROBO can not alter the BIOS boot sequence. Your computer has likely always been like that but no device ever presented itself as a potential floppy or bootable device so the boot sequece skipped it (although this likely added a few seconds to your boot time while it was searching for such a device). Then you intalled a DROBO and suddenly the BIOS sees a potential bootable device and then fails because the device doesn't have a bootable partition. This is exactly what it is supposed to do. DROBO has to design their firmware to present itself as a bootable device just in case somebody actually wants to boot the system off of the DROBO with an installed OS on the DROBO. The real issue here is that whoever built your PC still has a legacy floppy as the first boot device - they probably didn't bother to change it since no floppy was installed but it is still very sloppy system setup and not something I would expect from a really good PC builder (note I do not consider Dell, HP, Lenovo really good PC builders - they are mass market builders but they don't optimize their systems very well).

I actually prefer to put the OS hard disk as the first device because it speeds boot time. If something happens to that disk and I need to boot off of something else like a DVD, I can always rearrange the order. It shaves about 10 seconds off of the boot time to do it that way.

So Mary, if you put the sequence to first boot off of your C: drive, then DVD, then whatever else you have, you will probably save 15 to 20 seconds every time you boot your system.