Speed up boot time

[BiGg RiE]

How can I speed up my boot time.

the time from post to desktop on my XP Pro system is about 40 seconds. It takes about 30 seconds to get past the windows is loading screen with the satus bar scrolling at the bottom.

Then there is about a 3 second pause between that screen and the desktop. Then it takes about 2 minutes for the system to be usable ie; startmenu accessable, right click of desktop.

On a previous install of xp pro it would take me 20 from post to usability and I'm using faster hardware on this build.

Can anyone recomend a software that can scan my system upon boot and optimize it based on the results?

Previously I used bootvis for this task however, I tried bootvis but it gives me errors and I can not get it to display a result.

THX,

BIGg RiE

[dicecca112]

defrag and run tunexp

[werty316]

One factor that affects boot times greatly are applications that startup when windows is loading. Zonealarm is one app that can slow down your boot time big time.

Also don't use any visual themes; not sure if using the "classic" them over the default "XP" theme would improve boot times.

[T-Shirt]

first error check and defrag the boot drive (run defrag multiple times if it hasn't been done for a while
then set a boot log from from "system management" and reboot
this will give you a listing and times to complete each boot/startup item
you may find a number of items that are not needed or are stalled/failing during the boot process.

[Alathald]

Check out everything on this webpage, lots of good advice, Step 5 is the stuff you're looking for though:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD ... tml#Tweaks
Try PageDefrag http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysint ... efrag.mspx
Also, make sure you defrag

[Apoptosis]

go into MSConfig...Click startup, select disable all, click apply.... Might want to leave a couple things like virus protection on though

[BiGg RiE]

first error check and defrag the boot drive (run defrag multiple times if it hasn't been done for a while
then set a boot log from from "system management" and reboot
this will give you a listing and times to complete each boot/startup item
you may find a number of items that are not needed or are stalled/failing during the boot process.

How do set a boot log from system management?

[moon111]

You might want to look at what services are loading up too.

[dgood]

what about bios boot times? i've had some motherboards that start a lot of raid and such when you don't have it and search for items that aren't connected. turning off all of those seeks and such will really speed up the boot until you get to windows.

[DaIceMan]

One of the big things that seemed to speed boot time on my new system was setting the hard drive as the first boot device. This cuts out the time it takes for it to check the CD/DVD drive to see if there is a system disc in the drive. Of course, if you set it this way, you will need to change the priority if/when you need to actually boot from a CD, i.e. windows install/repair, etc.

As Apop said, killing most of the "crap" in msconfig boot tab will help a lot. I for one, really don't give 2 craps if Real/QuickTime, etc thinks it needs to look for updates EVERY time I boot up. I'll tell them when it's necessary to look for updates.

Good luck, and let us know how the "fixes" we have thrown out work for you.

[BiGg RiE]

Boot logging is not an option on the advances boot menu it starts with safemode, safe mode with networking etc. but no enable boot logging option.

How can I enable this.

Additionally I'm getting check disk wanting to check a partition on one of my drives and when I let it complete it gives me the following msg:

file record 8010 unreadable

I don't know if that means anything to anyone.

I'm also getting an error from my multimedia card reader :

Resource is not enough!

and every now and then i get an error from ultramon:

could not set the tray icon!

in addition to all that sometimes I cannot update my avg antivirus.

Thanx

[BiGg RiE]

Like so many other windows issues once this thing got out of hand and would pop up a BSOD every time i booted into windows. I decided to repair it. Unfortunatly when I got to the "XP is Installing" screen at 35 minute reading and installing devices msg it would BSOD and I couldn't finish the repair.

So I opted to reinstall everything should be fixed right? Well, maybe not cause when I formated my xp partition and installed xp pro fresh when i got to that install screen again It BSODed me again so I just let it restart reset my mobo options to their defaults ie; stopped all overclocking and I also set the IRQ to manual and left them at their defaults. the install on the next boot finished.

The problem is that my All of my HDD's aren't showing up I have 4 HDD's and only 2 are showing up my ide and my xp pro and programs partitioned sata 3 drive the other two and 120 & 250 GB sata 3 drives don't show up in the bios or in windows.

So after I installed all the drivers and everything for my MOBO I shut down for the night.

This morning low and behold all my drives are showing up but I'm still getting the disk check on one of them and it's still giving me that same error on 8010.

In windows I try to extract something from one of the other drives to the desk top and I get a "you don't have permission , you can place the files only in your documents."

WHAT?!?! ok so I'm thinking 2night I'll fresh install again since I haven'nt really installed anything yet.

Additionally I tried some modest overclocking and Got a bsod so I'm thinking that maybe I need to set the voltage range again since this is the only overclocking option I left on auto.

But that doesn't explain the mysterious disappearing HDD's.

Anyone know what these symtoms maybe due to?

Also my ide has a c: and e: partition. I cannot boot into windows with out this drive. There is no BOOt.ini file on my new install of xp's partition in the root directory but there is one in the c drive on the ide drive. I want to eventually replace my ide drive with another sata. anyone know why I need to do to make this possible?

I fugure i should do any touchy things now rather then later when xp is fully installed again and all my apps are installed again.

Thanx

[moon111]

Like so many other windows issues once this thing got out of hand and would pop up a BSOD every time i booted into windows. I decided to repair it. Unfortunatly when I got to the "XP is Installing" screen at 35 minute reading and installing devices msg it would BSOD and I couldn't finish the repair.

So I opted to reinstall everything should be fixed right? Well, maybe not cause when I formated my xp partition and installed xp pro fresh when i got to that install screen again It BSODed me again so I just let it restart reset my mobo options to their defaults ie; stopped all overclocking and I also set the IRQ to manual and left them at their defaults. the install on the next boot finished.

The problem is that my All of my HDD's aren't showing up I have 4 HDD's and only 2 are showing up my ide and my xp pro and programs partitioned sata 3 drive the other two and 120 & 250 GB sata 3 drives don't show up in the bios or in windows.

So after I installed all the drivers and everything for my MOBO I shut down for the night.

This morning low and behold all my drives are showing up but I'm still getting the disk check on one of them and it's still giving me that same error on 8010.

In windows I try to extract something from one of the other drives to the desk top and I get a "you don't have permission , you can place the files only in your documents."

WHAT?!?! ok so I'm thinking 2night I'll fresh install again since I haven'nt really installed anything yet.

Additionally I tried some modest overclocking and Got a bsod so I'm thinking that maybe I need to set the voltage range again since this is the only overclocking option I left on auto.

But that doesn't explain the mysterious disappearing HDD's.

Anyone know what these symtoms maybe due to?

Also my ide has a c: and e: partition. I cannot boot into windows with out this drive. There is no BOOt.ini file on my new install of xp's partition in the root directory but there is one in the c drive on the ide drive. I want to eventually replace my ide drive with another sata. anyone know why I need to do to make this possible?

I fugure i should do any touchy things now rather then later when xp is fully installed again and all my apps are installed again.

Thanx

Too complex. Four drives, some partitions (why?)

Process of elimination. Disconnect all but one harddrive. Does it work? Do your Windows install. Add a drive. Does it work? repeat.

[BiGg RiE]

OK, so I detached everything but my primary sata and reinstalled. Install went fine. Attached my ide with no problems but my other sata's are dissappearing. They give me a windows write fail error before they disappear and they only come back if I leave my PC off for an hour or more. I hit some forums for that message and all things point to the HDD getting ready to give out. So i ordered a 400GB HDD to putt what I can on there and maybe make them externals I read that people have had some success doing this and reformating the drives.

We'll see.

BSOD:

So this thing came back but I figured it was a VGA driver conflict
So i uninstalled the nvidia drivers cleaned my registry, restarted and decided to let windows find the drivers this time. TO my surprise windows actually did something right on it's own for a change, or so it seems.

I installed Ntune and have been going strong with no BSod for about 1.5 days now.

Once I get a little more stability tests done I'll try overclocking again.

[wildlaser]

In your sig, I think its's hatorri hanzo? right? anyways, you probly looked it up, sounds like an h though...


dude, it seems like you got alot going on with your system, if you dontt want BSOD, go back to ALL original settings, no overclock or 3rd party drivers or whatnot, then change 1 item at a time to see whats going on, too many variables I agree.

[Pesto]

anyone ever used BootVis to help speed up their XP startup?

it would let you know whats holding back your startup time.. but from the sounds of it you figured out it was a bad drive... I had a wireless card in a laptop cause it to take about 10 minutes to boot up, this nifty app helped me pin-point it.

[IssE]

Time taken to boot.. I don't know how to improve that but you can always improve time taken from windows log in screen to accessibility of start menue and such programs by stopping unnecessary programs from starting up :D

[BiGg RiE]

anyone ever used BootVis to help speed up their XP startup?

it would let you know whats holding back your startup time.. but from the sounds of it you figured out it was a bad drive... I had a wireless card in a laptop cause it to take about 10 minutes to boot up, this nifty app helped me pin-point it.

I usually use bootvis but since I got the Asus Crosshair i get a message when I try to trace my boot.