It doesn't *sound* like a GPO problem but its really hard to tell with that. Is there something special about that USB drive? In other words, will this repro with *any* USB drive or just a particular one? The only thing I can think of is that some part of the boot process is relying on checking that boot drive, but its really hard tell from your description what part that is. In any case I know of no policies off the top of my head that would cause this. Have you tried removing all policies to see if the problem goes away? Darren From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Piet Slaghekke Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 11:12 AM To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [gptalk] USB DRIVE Problems winxp boot-->GPO settings? The strangest thing is happening: My windows machine will only boot with a USB drive in the USB port. It will boot in safe mode with or without the USB drive. checked bios settings, set to boot only to the SATA HD and shut off booting from USB. This is what happens if I boot without USB drive: first the windows xp screen comes up, then after a few seconds it will go to a black screen and do nothing. Put the USB drive in reboot and it boots with no problems. The only changes I have made are to the GPO settings. could something in the GPO settings be causing this? Thanks!