Can't figure out why my boot/startup is so slow... changed a few IDE settings...

[Actaeon]

Today I installed a DVD-RW, and while doing that, I changed my IDE configurations. Now when loading windows, I get that long black screen inbetween the loading screen and the log on screen, quite a common problem. I did several searches, and I tried everything recommended on every one of those threads.

Currently my primary drive is on SATA, my secondary drive is on Master Primary. My Slave Primary is empty, while my DVD-RW is Master Secondary, and CD-RW is Slave Secondary.

I disabled the Slave Primary in bios, and told windows not to try to detect it via Device Manager.

I took a suggestion from a thread about bootvis, and it gave SOME information. Here is the results... http://www.pbase.com/actaeon/image/41172674

I think that brown bar is when it finally logs into windows, but if you notice the "Registry+Page File" bar before hand, it is extremely long, nearly 50 seconds. I downloaded CCleaner hoping to clean up my registry and fix this, but it still didn't work.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks

EDIT: Fixed broken link.

 

[bigboxes]

Maybe your hdd is going bad. Run a utility made for your drive and see if it tells you anything. Back up your data and rma if necessary. Good luck.

 

[Actaeon]

Originally posted by: bigboxes
Maybe your hdd is going bad. Run a utility made for your drive and see if it tells you anything. Back up your data and rma if necessary. Good luck.

Good suggestion, but I think its more of a software problem. I just bought this HDD about 3 weeks ago (Seagate). The Primary Drive's settings were never changed, it was SATA before, and after my change of settings.

For reference...

OLD SETUP:

Primary Drive = SATA >C:
Secondary Drive = Secondary Slave >D:
DVD-RW = N/A
CD-RW = Secondary Master >E:
Floppy = Floppy >A:

NEW SETUP:

Primary Drive = SATA >C:
Secondary Drive = Primary Master >D:
DVD-RW = Secondary Master >E:
CD-RW = Secondary Slave >F:
Floppy = Floppy >A:

 

[Philippine Mango]

well for one thing, when ever possible, try to use different channels for you stuff. The DVD burner should be on primary and the CD burner should be on secondary..

 

[Actaeon]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
well for one thing, when ever possible, try to use different channels for you stuff. The DVD burner should be on primary and the CD burner should be on secondary..

Whats the difference? I decided that the optical drivers should be on one channel, and the actual hard disks on another.

Is there a reason why I shouldn't? Or is there a reason why my choice was a bad idea?

 

[hemiram]

I have tried it both ways and saw little, if any real difference, it sounds to me like it's got a conflict somewhere in bios or cables, and is timing out after trying to check the drives, then booting up. DO ALL of the drives work ok? if any are really slow to come up, or don't that's where the problem is.

I have mine set up the same way as you do, except I don't have a SATA drive:

Primary Drive = Primary Master C: WD 250 gig
Secondary Drive = Primary Slave >D: Seagate 200gig
DVD-RW = Secondary Master >E: Nec 3500
DVD-ROM = Secondary Slave >F: Asus 16X
Floppy = Floppy >A:


You might try taking them out of the system one at a time and rebooting.

 

[Bozo Galora]

So, run HDTach and see where you stand on thruput
Run SiSoft Sandra and do a memtest and also check to see what DMA is enabled on drives

Viruses can also slow down system, dont know what you had on drives before
You could disable all unnecessary services - look in window after cntrl-alt-del to see whats running
CPU idle should be 99%

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, Sounds like something is not setup correctly. The long pause is the system trying to talk to a drive. If it wont answer it keeps trying about 1-2 minutes. Pull all drives except the boot drive and reboot. Shut down and add the other drives one at the time. You should discover the culprit real quick. Jim

Edit- The only thing that might be wrong with the CD/RW is the jumpering for Master or Slave and most don't really care about that expecially if they are alone on a cable. If it's jumpered correctly then the drive is probably bad. Did you try the "Bad' Drive alone on a cable. Maybe Conincidence!! Remember, Electronics is capable of 100,000 failures each 1 millisecond. Jim

 

[Actaeon]

Hey guys, thanks for all the posts so far. I've narrowed it down to the old CD-RW drive, but I'm not quite sure whats wrong. The BIOS detects it just fine, and it is detected in Windows, so I'm not quite sure what the problem is. I went to Device Manager, and it says Secondary channel is working fine.

Could it be a jumper setting?

 

[Zepper]

If you have an active network card that isn't attached to any network or high speed internet etc., that can cause a long delay while Windwoes tries to find one. You can disable the network card in Dev Mgr until you are actually going to use it.

.bh.

 

[Actaeon]

Thanks Zepper, the only NIC I have is the intergrated one on my Abit NF7-S, and that is being used.

I fixed the problem, I just disconnected the CD-RW. It looks like I won't be needing it anymore anyway. It would have been nice to have for burning CDs on the fly, but it isn't needed. My current DVD-RW does all of its old functions, and then some.

Oh well. Maybe later down the road I'll pick up a regular DVD drive.