No startup wth USB hard drives Aspire U5-620

Verne
Verne Member Posts: 1 New User
edited March 1 in 2019 Archives
Hi all,
I am new to this and did not see the problem when searching the forums but my guess is I just failed to use the right terms.  Others must have experienced this.
I have an Aspire U5-620.  I am a photographer and am approaching the data limit on the internal 1 TB drive.  I purchased two 8 TB USB 3.0 drives.  When I start the computer with the drives plugged in the startup process stalls.  BIOS gives me no choice for C drive only.  Startup is controlled by Windows Boot Manager which I have no experience with.  
When I look at the boot manager it says " Windows 10 (C:\Windows) :Current OS; Default OS.  I would think that would do it but I must be wrong as I believe it is not starting up because it is busy looking for an OS on the USB drives.  Can anyone help?

Comments

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 33,848 Trailblazer
    No, it's unlikely to be failing to start because of the external drives pretending to be boot devices. It's much more likely you are running into a power budget problem. Do the two external drives have their own power or are they getting it all from the USB ports? The power available on a USB port is often not enough to drive those big HDDs. The power budget on a USB 2.0 port is 500mA, on a USB 3.0 900mA and a USB 3.0 in charger mode is 2100mA. Note that the last mode may give enough power, but it also disables data transfer... I believe the only one that supports the charging mode is the 3.0 on the left side. What you might want to do is use an external USB 3.0 hub that has it's own power supply and put the two drives on it. Does it work with only one installed? What happens when you plug one in while up and running?
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • The_Old_Gringo
    The_Old_Gringo Member Posts: 2 New User
    Sorry to disrupt this thread, first time user in 'Acer Community'.  This seems to be the only Aspire U5-610 thread, thus my post.  I've been searching Bing for two days in search of a BIOS update.  Originally searching for an AMI motherboard, only to learn an hour ago my motherboard is an 'Acer'.  And I learned years ago, Acer is short on replies or actual help.  Any directional help toward a 'BIOS update' will be greatly appreciated.

    ADDITIONALLY: thanks for the 8TB info, I currently am using one 2TB & one 4TB Seagate storage devices and have been considering the purchase of an 8TB.  Now I'll have to look around and find units with separate power sources.

    Regards,
    Ben
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 33,848 Trailblazer
    Did you try the Acer support website? Any BIOS updates they have done will be there. Which BIOS are you running? Why do you want to update it? We typically don't suggest updating it unless they very narrow set of changes are something that affects you.
    Oh, and you can always just start a new thread. :) If you are the person who starts a thread you can mark it solved for your question, which raises it's standing in results for people searching with similar questions. If you didn't start the thread you can't mark it solved...
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • The_Old_Gringo
    The_Old_Gringo Member Posts: 2 New User
    edited December 2019
    'billsey' thank you very much, when I went to Acer I always ended up with a Manual/Software screen.  Binged again, low and behold there was BIOS amongst the manuals and software.  Don't know how I missed it the first time around.  Now that I've got it I will not install as its also dated 2013, so it's not designed to assist 'Windows 10' (my original goal).  Thanks again.