HD is thrashing at WinXP splash screen-> What am i loading???

[JEDI]

winxp sp2

lately, it's been taking longer and longer to bootup. granted i;ve been installing/uninstalling stuff.

now the hd is thrashing at the winxp splash screen.

how can i tell what's being loaded at that time?

 

[ColKurtz]

Start -> Run -> MSCONFIG.EXE. Go to the startup page and remove any items you don't like from the list.

 

[JEDI]

there's nothing out of the ordinary that i can see at msconfig.

is there a way to see what's loading while it's booting up?

 

[RelaxTheMind]

sounds like its looking for a file that isnt there. thats usually what the thrashing is from. when windows cant find a certain startup file it takes it upon itself to look for it.

id try doing selective startup to pinpoint the problem

 

[Philippine Mango]

why in the hell did you install XP on your oldass laptop? Infact why did you install SP2 on there?? SP2 slows down machines and putting SP2 will only make that so much worse..

 

[xgsound]

There is a cute little program called startup at http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

It shows many startup items from registry and other sources that can be disabled with check marks for troubleshooting. It has choice of a Control panel or stand alone version.

I've never used it , but it helped out my son several times.

Jim

 

[RVN]

Can you scandisk/checkdisk and defrag?

 

[RelaxTheMind]

i never really have trusted chkdsk for xp from the repair console. It does what it thinks you want it to do and there isnt really any control over how it fixes the "problems"

A good program that searches for broken links or shortcuts would be suffice. Norton windoctor is one but is probably one of the only norton program i use. But it really sounds like the drive is searching for a missing or moved program file.

I use StartupFaster because its the only program loaded in the startup folder and load your startup programs individually in the order you want so its easy to troubleshoot which program is giving you problems.

Could be an uninstalled/installed startup configuration that never completed and is stuck in a loop?

 

[D1gger]

Try running Bootvis. It will give you a report on what is loading and how long it is taking.

 

[RelaxTheMind]

Originally posted by: D1gger
Try running Bootvis. It will give you a report on what is loading and how long it is taking.

duh... the program that mysteriously disapeared from the microsoft site a year or so ago... hehe

 

[JEDI]

i tried bootvis and got this error:

"number of physical drives in the trace file is 0. trace file has invalid system config info."

Now what???

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: RelaxTheMind

Originally posted by: D1gger
Try running Bootvis. It will give you a report on what is loading and how long it is taking.

duh... the program that mysteriously disapeared from the microsoft site a year or so ago... hehe

There is a reason it disappeared, it caused havok with certain setups...

 

[VirtualLarry]

I thought that it was just because everyone downloading it think that it would "magically make boot-times faster" (eg. an optimizer rather than a diagnostic tool). I'm disappointed that I didn't manage to snag a copy before it disappeared. 🙁 Does it only work on XP, or on W2K too?

 

[gsaldivar]

Don't shut it down so often...

Use Hibernate instead, to help offset the slow boot speed of older laptops.

:thumbsup:😀