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Boot time increases when HDD is connected

B

Burner27

Diamond Member
I am trying to figure this out maybe you guys know something that I don't. I have the following drives attached to my PC:

SATA 0: Intel 80GB SSD G2
SATA 1: Intel 80GB SSD G2
SATA 2: Mushkin Callisto Deluxe 60GB
SATA 3: Mushkin Callisto Deluxe 60GB
SATA 4: Western Digital Green 2TB
SATA 5: Samsung SH-S223F DVD Writer

Attached to Rosewill PCIe x4 Non-RAID controller

2 x 2TB Seagate Barracuda LP


Now I installed the OS to one of the Intel SSD's with NO OTHER SSD/HDD attached and the machine booted up very quickly. I installed all updates/drivers and the machine was still booting very quickly. Keep in mind the Rosewill card was still in the machine at this time and no drives were attached.

I attached the HDDs and then the boot time increased at least 10 seconds. I moved all the HDDs to the Rosewill controller but the same thing occurred. Is this expected behavior when attaching the 'green' type drives?
 
1. did the time of BIOS booting up increase, or the time the OS takes increase? If it is the mobo, well, nothing you can do about it.
2. There are a variety of issues with drives failing / about to fail that significantly increase boot time for windows to load, this might be one of them.
3. Is it set to boot from the SSD or the HDD first? it could be trying to load an OS from the HDD, fail to find one, then try the SSD... which adds time to your boot. So check your boot order.
 
Burner27 said:
Fix?
Click to expand...

The only "fix" is to leave them unplugged.
Remember the days of floppy drives? You turn the computer on and their lights flash and they grind, checking for a disk? Same deal, really.
The only way to avoid that was to unplug them. So glad those days are over.
I have 6 internal HDs and it takes a bit longer to boot since they all have to be ID'ed.
I used to use 4 USB externals as well, that REALLY increased the boot time.
 
while it's probable that it's just drive polling and nothing can be done, there ARE a few other possibilities, some of which have solutions.

OP, did you verify that the SSD is set to boot first before the spindle drive?
 
Are you counting Windows LOAD time as bootime? The former can get significantly delayed by your AV program checking with each drive. That is part of the polling process. As has been stated, the fix is not to access them until you actually need them.
 
taltamir said:
1. did the time of BIOS booting up increase, or the time the OS takes increase? If it is the mobo, well, nothing you can do about it.
2. There are a variety of issues with drives failing / about to fail that significantly increase boot time for windows to load, this might be one of them.
3. Is it set to boot from the SSD or the HDD first? it could be trying to load an OS from the HDD, fail to find one, then try the SSD... which adds time to your boot. So check your boot order.
Click to expand...


1. I should have clarified. BIOS boot remains the same, OS Boot time increases when HDD are attached.

2. I will check this. It could be one of my Barracudas about to fail.

3. Boot order is set to SSD first.



corkyg said:
Are you counting Windows LOAD time as bootime? The former can get significantly delayed by your AV program checking with each drive. That is part of the polling process. As has been stated, the fix is not to access them until you actually need them.
Click to expand...

Not BIOS boot time, only Windows Boot time. I tried a fresh install with only with no AV program installed and with all updates and drivers.
 
Last edited:
OK - but to be technically clear, the OS does not boot - it loads. The Anti-Virus checking applies. Check your Windows SystemConfig Startup, and uncheck all but essentials and see how that affects the OS load time.
 
Sorry the OS load time increases. As i stated. This was a fresh install with no antivirus installed. Only updated the OS and all drivers. It is only when I reattached the spindle drives that the boot times increases.
 
Culprit identified...............Western Digital 2TB Green drive that uses the advanced format.

When not connected, machine boots fast. Now to figure out a way around it. I could set the drive to use the 512k cluster size--at least I think i can and see if that makes any difference.

Any other suggestions??
 
Burner27 said:
When not connected, machine boots fast. Now to figure out a way around it. I could set the drive to use the 512k cluster size--at least I think i can and see if that makes any difference.
Click to expand...

the drive always uses 4kb internally, and lies to the OS claiming to have 512b sectors. This is done for compatibility with winXP
There is no way to disable that 512B emulation (which is VERY harmful in some situations)

There is no such thing as a 512KB sector.

The jumper is for alignment purposes, it shifts all addresses by 1.
 
Don't have the drive connected until after the boot/load cycle. It should function as a hot pluggable external.
 
Interesting thing happened. I deleted the partition on the 2TB Green drive, rebooted and the problem is now gone!!!

I have to see what happens when I start putting information back on it.......
 
Last edited:
Converted drive to GPT, formatted drive as one partition, rebooted--all is fine

Dumped 13GBs on to it, it transferred fine and quick (~125MB/s), rebooted and ---- all is fine and speedy.


Weird.
 
not unheard of either, there was probably some corrupt FS data there that windows was choking on or some such.
Good to hear your problem is solved.
 
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