Annoying Asus P45 Pro problem

[steakman1971]

I have an external Western Digital USB drive and an internal IDE drive (using PATA). More often than not, if I have to reboot - the board will not see the PATA drive. I've gone into the BIOS, checked all settings, etc. When the problem happens - I can't see if PATA drive in the boot options.
My guess is that this is a bug. To fix it, I unplug the external drive from the USB port. Everything works fine after that.
I guess I keep my eyes open for a BIOS upgrade or possibly upgrade my PATA (250GB left over I had) to a SATA drive. I might also try the eSATA port (not sure if my mobo has this - think it does, but not positive...).

 

[aamsel]

Did you set the PATA boot ROM option, wherever it is?
The P5Q series (if this is what you have) uses a chip external to the southbridge for IDE.

Hope this helps.