Long Boot Times

[caffeinejunkie]

Alright I have been having boot time issues for some time now

 

My computer will sit at the windows loading screen for upwards of 2 minutes

 

My memory just recently kicked the bucket and when I was trouble shooting I had my computer out and I was only using the bare essentials (mobo,cpu,ram,video,one harddrive)

 

Low and behold once I put in some different memory my boot time gos back into the sub 10 second range

 

so im like alright the boot times must have just been from my obviously faulty memory

 

I was wrong I plug in the second harddrive and bam slammed with a 2 minute wait

 

What do you guys think cause right now im stumped

 

also my master drive with windows on it is an western digital 40gb 5400rpm and my slave drive is a seagate 160gb 7200rpm drive that I got maybe two months ago the western digitals probably 3-4 years old.

[IUMaestro]

well - what you could do is partition your 160GB for windows, let your 40GB have all the programs, and leave the rest of the 160 for data.

 

but - i would run DFT on the drive, if you think it may be failing and not reading files well, does it support SMART?

 

but what's more likely is that there is some program starting with Windows that's dragging it down, any Symantec or Norton anti-virus is notorious for super-long boot times because by default it does a full scan on the memory, boot files, and the C: drive when Windows starts up, there used to be a reg fix on their site but I don't see it.

 

If you have Norton - try msconfig, take it out and see if that helps. And while you're in msconfig, make sure you only have what you NEED starting up. There's alot of stuff that creeps in there over time that you don't know about

[caffeinejunkie]

Hmm guess my first post wasnt clear

 

My 40gb has windows/all my programs

My 160gb is all storage music/video/ect...

 

w/ only the 40gb running my boot times are in the sub 10s

w/ both the 40gb and the 160gb my boot times are around 2mins

 

so it's nothing loading and I reformated less than a week ago

 

also whats dft?

[ir_cow]

i found reinstalling audio drivers did the trick for me a while back, somthing about them being scattered around took windows 4min! to load.

[IUMaestro]

dft = drive fitness test from IBM, very good hard drive diagnostic test.

 

and when i'm talking about how to partition stuff, i'm talking about a reformat

 

i would consider a boot-time defragment (not by windows defragger, maybe diskeeper or O&O those are great defraggers)

 

and msconfig it dude.

[caffeinejunkie]

i found reinstalling audio drivers did the trick for me a while back, somthing about them being scattered around took windows 4min! to load.

588201[/snapback]

 

read my post

 

the drive with windows on it and all my programs is not the issue it alone will boot in the sub 10s it's the addition of my 160 (which for the most part is brand new) that is causing the long boot times

 

ediT:: I use diskkeeper it defrags everynight both drives

 

is boot-time defrag some option im not seeing??

 

again the drive with windows is not the issue besides I have almost nothing loading at start because for the time being im down to 256mb memory (512 kicked the bucket as stated above)

 

Could It be some hardware issue that could cause the load times with the addition of the second drive?

 

Myabe Ill try tomarrow with having my second drive on the second ide channel see if anything changes

Edited December 1, 2005 by caffeinejunkie

[ir_cow]

well is your new drive sata? and the drives wack? or is it sitting at the bios screen scaning your new drive? ( some drives have the auto scan for bad sectors build in and on, you can turn it off)

 

EDit\\ i dont know what im talking about at 2am anymore...

[caffeinejunkie]

both drives are IDE

 

it doesnt sit at the bios it just sits at the windows load screen for upwards of 2 mins

 

it sits at this

 

 

edit:: for some reason I do my best thinking at 2am but im tired so im gonna get some rest thanks for the help ill try the second channel in the morning and that dft thing

Edited December 1, 2005 by caffeinejunkie

[IUMaestro]

sorry i couldn't help more dude sleep well.

 

dft is always good, but that tests if drives are good or bad, black or white, so it may be worth it to see, but it may not fix anything.

 

i'm gonna think about it longer.

[bigdaddy25fb]

defrag em both, and run Microsoft BootVis

[caffeinejunkie]

turns out both hard drives are fine I narrowed it down to my cd drive by process of elimination

 

now what?

Edited December 3, 2005 by caffeinejunkie

[ktulu909]

turns out both hard drives are fine I narrowed it down to my cd drive by process of elimination

 

now what?

589244[/snapback]

i have a seagate drive as well and noticed I couldent get it to start correctly as the slave so I setup both drives to Cableselect and all has been well since.

 

Just something to try.