How Do I Get Dell To Boot To Flash Drive With New Hard Drive In Computer?

I had an 80GB Seagate IDE hard drive in my Dell Dimension 2400 that was clearly dying. I have been using a boot CD to connect to the Internet for days now. I have replaced the old hard drive with an unused 250GB WD IDE drive and with difficulty gotten the computer to recognize it. I intended to boot to flash drive and use the boot CD to execute the transfer of an image of the old Seagate drive from its location on my external hard drive to the new internal hard drive. But the computer will only boot to flash drive when the new internal hard drive is removed. When the drive is in and I click Enter on "6. USB Flash Drive", I get the ""Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility" message over and over.

When I take the hard drive out, I can boot into flash drive again. I have A05 BIOS, and it appears to me from the Dell website that is as far as I can go.

How can I start booting into flash drive with my new hard drive in place, just as I did with my old hard drive in place?



Computer: Dell Dimension 2400 Desktop
CPU: Intel Pentium 4-2667 (Northwood, D1)
2666 MHz (20.00x133.3) @ 2657 MHz (20.00x132.9)
Motherboard: DELL 0G1548
Chipset: Intel 845GEV (Brookdale-GEV) + ICH4
Memory: 2048 MBytes @ 166 MHz, 2.5-3-3-7
- 1024 MB PC3200 DDR-SDRAM - Kingston K
Graphics: Intel 82845G/GL/GV Graphics Controller [DELL]
Intel i845G(L) Integrated, 64 MB
Old Drive: ST380011A, 78.1 GB, E-IDE (ATA-6)
New Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE (WD2500JB) 250GB 8MB Cache 7200RPM ATA100 (http://www.goharddrive.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCo...
Drive: HGST HTS545050A7E380, 488.4 GB, Serial ATA 3Gb/s <-> USB
Drive: SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252S, CD-R Writer
Sound: Creative Technology SB Live! Series Audio Processor
Network: RealTek Semiconductor RTL8139 PCI Fast Ethernet NIC [A/B/C]
Network: Broadcom 4401 10/100 Integrated Controller
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Build 2600 SP3
Antivirus : Advanced System Care Ultimate (Bitdefender engine)
Firewall: Windows Firewall

 

leave the drive disconnected for the initial boot. I have heard from the guy at MyHardDriveDied this is possible when the system will not boot with the drive connected.

 

In F2 Setup, change the boot order so that the internal hard drive comes after the USB AND Optical drives. I have my second hard drive on my Dell as third and my main hard drive as fourth. If I "pull" the main hard drive, I DO get Press F1 to continue but, the computer boots to flash/USB or if none are attached, the second hard drive.

 

I eventually got back to being able to boot into flash drive with that new hard drive, and I can't really say how. I was not ever able to get my Dell to boot into Windows on that 250 GB hard drive. I had to get a 120GB IDE hard drive, and after some difficulty, AtlBo helped me to boot into Windows on it.

AtlBo has suggested that I try to use the 250 GB hard drive as a second hard drive. I believe I will, and I will follow your suggestion on the boot order, mdonah.