On 2008-03-20, eric <questermocolle@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> New evidence it's a power problem:
> if I plug the additional USB power cable into the laptop, the ext
> disk works (very) intermittently.
> HOWEVER, if I plug the USB data cable in the laptop and the additional
> USB power cable
> into a desktop computer, the laptop IS able to start GRUB. I tried
> three times and got
> 100% success.
>
> How can I solve the problem of the insufficient power (assuming this
> is really what's going on?) other than plugging the power cable into
> another computer
> (which clearly defeats the point of having a laptop in the first
> place).
>
Get a powered USB hub.