Unable to boot computer when external USB hard drive is tu..

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

I just bought a Seagate external 200GB USB/Firewire hard drive, and
connected via USB (2.0) to my a850e (with AMD Athlon 64 3400 cpu). I
used Seagate's Disk Wizard utility to partition the external drive into
3 "data only" - supposedly - partitions. Now, it works perfectly if I
turn on the external drive when the computer is already up and running -
plug'n'play recognizes it, and all is well. However, if I turn it on
before I boot up the computer, I get a message, after the initial boot
sequence screen, about "OS not found". I figure the system is trying to
boot off the external drive, and I've played around with the boot order
setting in the BIOS, and can't seem to hit upon the right settings.
Anyone have any ideas? TIA.
--
Debbie the Dogged das at spamcop dot net
"Poodles are space aliens who think they've disguised
themselves as dogs." - Paghat the Ratgirl