A hand-held test meter for use with an analytical test strip configured for the determination of an analyte in a bodily fluid sample includes a USB interface, a microcontroller block configured for boot strap loading (BSL) of data into the hand-held test meter via a serial signal and a circuit disruption avoidance block. The circuit disruption avoidance block includes a USB to serial bridge sub-block with (i) a USB input(s), (ii) a serial output(s) configured to provide a serial signal for BSL of data to the microcontroller block; and (iii) a plurality of general purpose input/outputs (GPIO). The circuit disruption avoidance block also includes a BSL enable gate/buffer sub-block. At least two of the GPIO are configured to provide BSL control signals to the microcontroller block via the BSL enable gate/buffer sub-block and the USB to serial bridge sub-block is configured to send the data to the microcontroller block via the at least one serial output.