PC won’t boot? Don’t panic – Disconnect any devices and try again.

I was in the middle of trying to meet some deadlines when my Windoze machine slowed down to a crawl.  I decided to take the time to apply the Windows updates and reboot.

When I rebooted the machine would not get past the HP boot screen. I did some preliminary checks like reseating  the memory chips and blowing the dust out of the unit…. I got the snow shovel out and cleaned up the dust.

As I was reconnecting the cables, I realized that my USB hub was plugged in. I had my phone and tablet plugged into the hub for data transfer and charging.  I left the hub disconnected and tried booting again. The machine booted perfectly.

I ran into this a long time back and luckily remembered the situation. Sometimes, USB devices such as phones, tablets, USB Sticks, Hard drives, cameras or anything else can prevent a PC from booting.  Try removing all devices and see if that fixes the problem.

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