XP takes 10-15 minutes to boot

[Maim]

I just finished reinstalling XP pro on an Athlon XP 1700+, Shuttle AK31 MB, 40 Gb Seagate barracuda (3 partitions), GeForce 2 MX, Fortissimo sound, 538TX NIC, USR modem, 256MB ram...

It kept blue screening and finally with a "can't find registry" error so I formatted and reinstalled. After the first reboot upon istallation took a few minutes, I began to worry. I installed SP2, I updated the video and sound drivers (both latest), installed AVG AV, installed RegscrubXP, installed BootVis, rebooted, still took forever.

I googled everything and found nothing to help with this. I modified the startup options by checking SOS and watch when it reboots.

The drivers go by fairly quickly, but the screen displaying "Microsoft (R) Windows (R) Version 5.1 (Build 2600: service Pack 2) 1 System Processor [256 MB Memory]" takes forever to pass. Finally I see the following:
checking file system on drive D: completed
checking file system on drive C: completed
checking file system on drive E: completed
and XP behaves fine after that. What I find bizarre is that it lists drive D first, followed by C.

I ran BootVis, but that doesn't tell me anything useful, just that it takes about 1000 seconds to boot. Maybe I'm missing an option here...

Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

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"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rich Cook

 

[bcastner]

. Do a chkdsk /r on all three volumes. You might consider using Recovery Console for this;

. In normal mode, defrag the three partitions;

. Disable any unused network adapters;

. Force an idle time optomization: faq779-4518

It will of necessity be a little slow at boot because your prefetch cache is empty. This should re-populate within two days.

 

[linney]

Does it boot up quicker in Safe Mode?

Are there any errors mentioned in the Event Viewer or the Device Manager?

Slow bootup
thread779-832730

 

[Maim]

bcastner: Would the recovery console be the "Safe mode with command prompt" or do I need to boot the XP cd and select the "repair" option?

Disks defragged, and NIC is being used. I did find the idle time optimization earlier, didn't seem to do anything.

linney: Boots in 20 sconds to safe mode, with or without networking.

No errors in event viewer besides those DCOM errors because of booting in safe mode.

Device manager shows nothing out of the ordinary, no exclamations.

I'll try disabling the nic, see if that does anything, but I don't see how that would do anything as safe mode with network boots super quick.



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"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rich Cook

 

[bcastner]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=314058

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q307/6/54.asp&NoWebContent=1

 

[linney]

If it boots OK in Safe Mode, these will help you play Detective and isolate the problem causing process. Chief suspects are things like Security Software, Video Drivers, but it could be any poorly written piece of software.

310353 - How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310353&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

316434 - HOW TO: Perform Advanced Clean-Boot Troubleshooting in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316434&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

310560 - How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310560&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

HOW TO: Verify Unsigned Device Drivers in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/5/14.asp

 

[Maim]

Frustration's setting in, ran chkdsk and defrag on all partitions, disabled everything in msconfig, removed any drivers that may be suspect, basically, just started with only "Load startup items checked" and "Original boot.ini" only.

Still takes around 5 minutes to boot, which is already much better. I'm suspecting deeper problems with the HD as it seems it's the disk checking that takes a long time to perform. I'll doenload the seagate tools and run them.

I'll keep you posted. Thanks again for the tips.

-----------------------------------
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rich Cook

 

[linney]

Load startup items checked"

Try isolating each individual item under the Startup tab of MsConfig.

 

[micker377]

I just had a "slow boot" problem on an upgrade (98-XP). I found that I had the secondary (CD) drives wrong. The "master" was on the middle connector, and the "slave" was on the end connector. What's funny, is that it worked OK on 98, but not on XP which supposedly doesn't care about assignments.

 

[Maim]

I officially gave up on this one.

I tried with a different hard drive, one that I had setup to multiboot win98, winXP and and Mandrake 10. The win98 came up in 15 sec, then started asking me for MB drivers etc..., trying to login to XP gave me blue screens.

SO I restarted XP setup, wiped all 5 partitions and kept a single 30g NTFS partition for XP. Install seemed kind of slow and the first reboot hung. Shut the machine off after 15 min, restarted and it hung again. So it wasn't anything with the HD.

I also have a Win2000 CD so I tried that one. Guess what? takes 30-40 sec to log in, installed all pertinent drivers on this machine and it boots fine. So case closed.

Thanks for listening to my rant, and thanks to all who provided tips and hints.

-----------------------------------
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rich Cook

 

[bcastner]

I'm suspecting deeper problems with the HD as it seems it's the disk checking that takes a long time to perform.

You just proved yourself right. XP would have a difficult time enumerating so Linux partition ID types in the MBR, much less the state of the MBR with all of these additions. Consider using Virtual PC:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx,

or the use of a third-party boot manager. The native XP boot manager is not very clever and not very forgiving.

 

[Maim]

bcastner, you misunderstood. My other machine (older BX celeron 1g) has two bootable HDs. One with XP, the other with 98, XP and Mandrake, both Quantums. Never had problems with it and I only used it for testing purposes. So I took that one, replaced the HD on the Athlon machine that's been causing me these vicious headaches, deleted all the partitions and reinstalled XP on that one. Same problem as with the seagate.

So I installed Windows 2000 and life was wonderful. All drivers, video, sound, antivirus, everything worked. Checked Device manager and I noticed a little yellow ! on a communications device. Oh yeah, there's a modem on this thing. Went to USR dot com and downloaded the 2000/XP drivers for this thing, rebooted... erm waiting? waiting? waiting?

IT'S THE FRICKIN' MODEM, AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHH. I physically removed it, went into safe mode and uninstalled the drivers, rebooted and it took around 35 sec to get into windows. I'll go buy another cheapie modem tomorrow and try it out (my cousin needs a modem, she doesn't want to spend for dsl or cable).

Talk about banging your head!

Later

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"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rich Cook