Help? Really slow bootup - a lot of HDD activity before WinXP is usable...

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From: William Cheng (wm_cheng_NOSPAM__at_sympatico.ca)
Date: 11/19/04 

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:40:39 -0500

Hi all,

I've been noticing a problem get progressively worst - the time after bootup
which I can start using WinXP. The actual boot up is not that bad, and I
get my desktop quite quickly, however, the HDD activity light is going like
crazy, and I can hear my HDD working overtime for a while before I can
actually use WinXP. I have checked all the usual suspects like
Spy/Ad/wares, or virus and I perform regular mantenances such as disk
defrags on my HDDs. The most noticable jump in time to wait came when I
switched my system HDD to a secondary VIA RAID controller (which isn't being
used as a RAID) - to use my Intel ICH5 controller to control my ATAPI
optical drives (which my VIA controller doesn't support). This was
unfortunately the only way I can get all 3 of my optical drives running at
the same time. I checked that the VIA controller is transferring in UDMA5.
Once everything is running, everything seems fine - just the bootup time.

I am still on WinXP SP1a and my system specs are:

Intel P4 2.4Ghz HT enabled
Asus P4P800 Deluxe (w/2x 512Mb dual channel =1Gb)
    Intel IDE:
        Primary: Sony DVD-RW (DRU-530A) -master
        Secondary: LiteOn CD-RW -master
        Secondary: Pioneer DVD-A05 -slave
    VIA IDE:
        Primary: WD 120Gb (System) -master
        Primary: WD 120Gb -slave
        Secondary: Quantum 6.4Gb -master
    SCSI:
        IBM 4Gb HDD
        Iomega ZIP removeable
        SyQuest 200Mb removeable
ATI Radeon 9000
ATI TV-Wonder

p.s. I heard something a while back that the VIA controller might be the
cause?
Thanks,
Wm

Relevant Pages

  • RE: Help? Really slow bootup - a lot of HDD activity before WinXP is u
    ... > which I can start using WinXP. ... > get my desktop quite quickly, however, the HDD activity light is going like ... > optical drives (which my VIA controller doesn't support). ... everything seems fine - just the bootup time. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • RE: Help? Really slow bootup - a lot of HDD activity before WinXP is u
    ... > which I can start using WinXP. ... > get my desktop quite quickly, however, the HDD activity light is going like ... > optical drives (which my VIA controller doesn't support). ... everything seems fine - just the bootup time. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment)
  • RE: Help? Really slow bootup - a lot of HDD activity before WinXP is u
    ... > which I can start using WinXP. ... > get my desktop quite quickly, however, the HDD activity light is going like ... > optical drives (which my VIA controller doesn't support). ... everything seems fine - just the bootup time. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.configuration_manage)
  • RE: Help? Really slow bootup - a lot of HDD activity before WinXP is u
    ... > which I can start using WinXP. ... > get my desktop quite quickly, however, the HDD activity light is going like ... > optical drives (which my VIA controller doesn't support). ... everything seems fine - just the bootup time. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Help? Really slow bootup - a lot of HDD activity before WinXP is usable...
    ... which I can start using WinXP. ... get my desktop quite quickly, however, the HDD activity light is going like ... used as a RAID) - to use my Intel ICH5 controller to control my ATAPI ... everything seems fine - just the bootup time. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.configuration_manage)