Windows SP3 does not reboot with a firewire external hard drive attached

[HandelMan]

I am having 2 systems on my network. I am using a Western Digital Firewire MyBook. I had attached that on the network. I had formatted one computer and installed Windows SP3 on the same. But after reboot the system fails to find the attached external hard drive. It has all my data and backup. The second computer is able to see everything. Is there any way to get it back live on the lan. Thanks.

[Ullas]

This is a common issue. First update your network drivers. Then later on update the firewire drivers on your system. New firewire drivers will help you to detect the device connected on lan. Share the drive and then map the same on My Computer. It is one of the best way to locate lan storage. If still it is not detected then ensure that your system has a full permission to access shared resources and it is on common workgroup.

[LokaPujya]

I do not think there might be anything located in the bios. But still you must check the same. If there is a firwire card on your system then check that it is installed and working properly. You can try connecting the external drive directly to your computer and see whether XP finds or not. The problem can also be due to port failure. It is necessary that you must find the proper driver setup and tools to make it work.

[imadman]

I have two external drives - one is WD the other is not. Both were attached via USB and worked with no problem (Windows XP SP2). I changed the connection to firewire so as to free up the usb ports and the problem described in this thread emerged. Windows would begin to boot and then hang indefinitely at the scrolling bar screen. A solution offered in a different forum was to disable the 1394 Net Adapter in Network Connections. I tried it and it worked. Hope this helps.

[equality]

Imadman! You're the man for today! Your solution worked here too! It almost drove me crazy. Millions of thanks!!!!!

[bimfi]

I had the same problem with my Dell D830 laptop and an external My Book firewire connected drive. After updating to XP SP3, windows would hang up at the boot splash screen. Just as was suggested, I reverted the sbp2port.sys to the SP2 file. Seems to be working fine for me now!!! Thanks a million!!!