External HDD Problem

Not sure if there is a permanent fix, but it's a bios issue IMO, it's typical of what I have seen when adding another drive, the bios changes the drive priority, and therefore boot order, what I would try first is to check\change the bios settings to do with booting, if you want to say what your motherboard make\model is I can try and find the specific entries\locations for this, but generally speaking you need to tell it what boot order you want, and which drive has priority. So under drive priority (not all boards have this setting) make sure your OS drive is set as the main drive, next under boot order\devices, it's up to you if you have the optical drive, or the OS drive as the 1st boot device, I select the OS drive as 1st device to speed booting up a bit, but others may prefer the optical drive as first, but if you went for the OS drive, just remember this will need to be swapped over with the optical drive if you ever need to boot from a disk again. Once you decide which drive is the first boot, the other drive should be 2nd boot, OS drive 1st then optical drive 2nd (or vice versa), as to other devices I would disable them unless you have a specific requirement, so floppy (if you have this), network, usb, 3rd boot, 4th if it has it, set all these to disabled in the boot menu, it will speed up the boot process a bit as it stops the system looking for other boot devices to go to, and will stop it finding the usb drive, the thing I can't be sure about is if\when you unplug the drive, the system picks it up as a new device, and it alters the boot and priority menus in the bios again, seen this happen loads of times when adding another device, but with luck this should cure the current issue. The main thing to remember is do not touch or change any other setting unless you know what your doing, and save and exit the bios when your done, hope it helps, if you need\want specific bios help then tell me the mobo (including any revision number if it has this) and I will check it's manual to guide you.

Let's have a look at what you have running from StartUp.

Please consider running this simple utility that will help you get control of programs and processes that you wish to have running active, or not.

CodeStuff-Starters
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/Starter.html

Download and install, agreeing to the licensing terms and allow to install with all of the default settings as preselected in the installation wizard.

When you finally allow CodeStuff-Starters to run
It will preselect StartUps Tab -

• Click on File
• Select - save as .HTML (name the report file - Startups 05 08 2012.html

Right-click on Startups 05 08 2012.html
Select – Send To – Compressed (zipped) folder

Please post Startups 05 08 2012.html (the compressed/zipped file) into your next reply
In your next reply, post the file as an attached file (use browse and upload buttons – at the bottom-right corner of your topic posting window where you are typing your next reply)

Please do not make any changes with Code-Stuff Starters, until after you post the requested information above and receive recommendations from a helper here.

Best Regards

Sorry for a slow reply, got tied up yesterday, anyway I don't see anything in the list you did for Doug (Thanks Doug) that sticks out to me, but others may see something I don't, and although the are a few things that many will say are not needed at boot, although they would be correct, it doesn't take the users requirement(s) of these processes into account, some users may want such items running at boot, but other than that it seems OK to me, if you would like to remove a couple of items just say and we can say which are best to remove. As to motherboard, I am having trouble finding a manual for that info, my guess is it's a store bought Acer, probably a notebook ? If you could give me the model number, or SNID number I can get the manual and see what options there are, the downside if it is a notebook or similar, is bios options are usually very restricted, basically you get few options that are changeable by the user, but once I get the manual for it I can say more hopefully.

right the items I would remove from start up are as follows:-
Apple Push
iTunesHelper
PLFSetI, found the following on this;

PLFSetI.exe is an executable file for acer integrated webcams. Usually through crystal eye. Removing Crystal eye Should solve this error message.

Windows Defender, I personally disable this in systems, I am not up to date on it's effectiveness these days, but when it was launched it was considered by many to be a waste of space, this may well have changed now, but my bigger concern in your situation is the number of real time protection programs you appear to be running, I am not qualified to say for sure one way or the other about the affect on one program on another, I just know the golden rule is never run more than 1 type of each protection type at the same time, I will see if I can get a clear answer for you on these programs.

Others may suggest stopping some further programs from running at boot, but those are the ones I would not hesitate to do, as long as the service is not required by you, I linked about the main ones for you to decide if running at boot is for you or not, I don't know the software Doug used, I prefer, and recommend getting WinPatrol, it allows you to control start up programs, but has the added advantage of protecting\warning about your home page being changed and your hosts file, it's extremely lightweight so you would not know it was running, a fantastic resource IMHO.

Now to the bios, as I feared being a laptop they seriously restrict the things you can change, the manual covers the bios in a few lines, and the only thing they say is use the bios utility by pressing F2 at boot (you probably know this already), then go down to boot, then alter the boot sequence there, which you have been doing already from what you have said, about the only thing I can add to this is as I said above briefly, look to see if there is a drive priority option as well, I doubt it being a laptop but worth a look, the only other thing is to confirm you are SAVING and exiting when you do this aren't you ?
Usually F10 is the shortcut for this, you probably are going on your posting, but had to ask as it's the only thing that would reset every boot if you didn't, other than this I am at a loss, so see if this helps (long shot I know), and report back and we can try and find if there are further options available.

*edit

Hi, Right the answer I have about the protection is if mbam is the Pro version running real time cover, it will be fine to run them together, but if mbam is not being used as real time cover you should remove it from boot.
Sorry for any confusion, I was told many years back about the 1 at a time rule, and at that Antispyware was included, but things have moved on and it no longer comes under this rule, these days it's just Antivirus and firewalls that should NEVER have more than 1 of each running real time cover at the same time, hope that makes sense now.

Now the bios, you have done exactly what I would of said to do, the fact it's not working is something I have no idea about, a bios update is not without risk, many advocate if it ain't broke don't fix, and I can't argue with that, if a bios flash goes bad it can kill the board, so maximum caution needs to be used in such matters, more so if your in an area that is prone to power failures, connection to a UPS device is the best you can get, stops power fluctuations, and usually has the power to allow it to complete before anything goes bad if you have an adequate UPS for your system, but with a laptop you have a battery, so not in the same ball park as a UPS, making sure it's fully charged before starting should maintain the power if you get a power cut.

Now something that may help, I just noticed they have a LaunchManager Application for download, I fear it wont do what you need, I found the following on this:-

The Launch Manager software is basically a keyboard driver, but for enhanced keyboard functions

But it certainly can't hurt to try it and see if it can help before trying anything more radical like a bios flash, if you do go down this route take note of their instructions on how to do it, this will maximise your chances of a trouble free flash, but NEVER shut down or power off during a flash, even if it appears to of stalled, just be patient or it could cost you dearly, I had a look at the bios file, but they say nothing about what this is supposed to fix, pretty poor practise IMO, so there is no way to know if it could help without updating, so the choice is yours, I hope something here helps.

Well just tried searching for similar issues to yours, and every result came back suggesting to disable Legacy USB Support, I have doubts as to if you have this option available to you in the bios, not sure if it has this option in the Admin Control Panel under Services, probably wouldn't hurt to check it out, it's easy to change it back if it does not help. The biggest warning about this option relates to USB keyboards and mouse, it dates back to before OS's were able to deal with USB ports during boot, and if your OS was not able to handle this the worst thing that would happen is your keyboard and mouse wouldn't work until you had booted, which stops you accessing the bios unless you have a PS2 connection and keyboard available to change it back again, but on a notebook with a modern OS I can't see this being a problem, I can't say about the full affects of doing this, but in this case I can't see it hurting to try, but it's up to you, if this doesn't work then I have no idea what will, looks like you will be stuck with unplugging before booting every time, hope you get a result anyway.