NASLite Network Attached Storage

The Setup: I got NASLite USB v2.02 three days ago and installed it without a hitch on a Shuttle AN35N mobo. For start, I only attached a 300G Samsung PATA HD on the primary IDE channel as master. I also have a CD-ROM attached to the secondary IDE channel as master.

The Problem: When I built the setup, the only USB drive I have is this 1GB drive. http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?loc=101&sku=202434195. Since only 7MB is used, I didn't want to waste all that capacity. So, I bought a 256MB Memorex Travel Drive. http://www.superwarehouse.com/Memorex_TravelDrive_256_MB_Flash_Drive/32509025/p/623771. I don't have problem using the utility program to create the bootable USB drive, but, the system won't boot as long as the HD is attached!. If I remove the HD, then the system boots. But, without HD, that defeats the purpose of NAS.

I tried to move the drive to different IDE channel and slot. I tried new cables. I tried configuration with and without CD-ROM. The bottom line is that as long as the HD is attached anywhere to the system, the system won't boot. The screen simply says "Boot Error".

Further Attempts: I borrowed a 128MB USB stick from a friend. It is a promotion item so I don't know what brand it is. But, it behaves just like the 256MB Memorex Travel Drive. Then I borrowed another friend's 128MB Lexar JumpDrive Secure http://lexar.com/jumpdrive/jd_secure.html. Same thing! In all 3 cases, I don't have any problem configure and boot the USB drives, including getting unlock code, if and only if I don't attach the HD.

This problem has been bugging me for the past 2 days. I can still use the system with the 1G USB drive. But, it bugs me that I can't use any other USB drives in my posession. I just want to know why Is there hardware difference between USB drives? Why would the presence of HD cause boot failure

How is your BIOS set up to boot, what is the boot order and have you deleted the HDDs from the boot list?

Mike

There are 3 devices listed in the boot sequece section in the BIOS. I set the 1st boot device to USB-HDD and disabled the other 2.

I have tried other USB options as well (still with boot device 2 and 3 disabled). The 1GB stick will boot with any USB-XXX setting: USB-Floppy, USB-HDD, USB-CDROM, and USB-Zip. The other 3 sticks will boot under any of those 4 USB-XXX settings as well, provided there is no HD attached to any IDE channel.

There is no question that my mobo supports booting from USB device. But only 1 stick will boot as expected while 3 others will only boot with no HD.

Additional information:

I thought I give it a shot at backing up the configuration from the bootable USB stick onto a non-bootable USB stick and see what happens. So, I booted into NASLite with the bootable USB drive; pulled it from the machine; plugged in a non-boot USB drive; and issued the Save Configuration command. The end result is "ERR-0B". If I repeat the Save Configuration command again, I get "gzip: /etc/ServerElements/cfg/config.dat.gz: File exists
ERR-0B".

The error messages are meaningless to me. Do they mean anything to anyone