HELP - Two IDE harddisks makes startup slower ?

[gouki]

I have a problem with my harddisks. I am running a 20gb harddisk as primary but when I plugged in another 10gb harddisk as a slave, I realize the boot-up becomes slower and it is delayed by a few seconds before the WinXP startup screen actually appears. Both are ATA100 so that wouldn't be a problem but what makes it slow ?. Probably anyone knows registry key edits to this problem ?. Thanks !

[turd]

just a thought, if you plug 2 devices onto an ide cable you will transfer at lowest speed if you have dif speed rate devices, are you sure that that 10gig drive is rated 100, seems kinda small to be recent enough for that speed

[RedDeathDrinker]

Originally posted by turd
just a thought, if you plug 2 devices onto an ide cable you will transfer at lowest speed if you have dif speed rate devices, are you sure that that 10gig drive is rated 100, seems kinda small to be recent enough for that speed


Just like Turd says, the problem is probably that your 10gig drive is as ATA66 drive, which will slow the data transfer from your ATA100 drive down to ATA66 levels. If you have a spare connection on your secondary, put it there instead (but don't move a CD drive onto the Primary to make space.....!)

[gouki]

Well, Im very sure its an ATA100 as it even shows in the BIOS itself. The only difference is that the 10gb is 5400 rpm while the 20gb is 7200rpm. Would that be the problem ?. If I were to plug it as secondary master, will it make my 10gb ATA100, 5400 rpm slower ?. Im pretty upset of this slowing up of the boot sequence :(

[turd]

could be as your going to have different seek times but im not really sure that this is your problem y dont u modify your boot.ini file as listed (make an ERD 1st) and see where the slow down is

Just add this /SOS with the space after fastdetect so that it looks like this in your boot.ini:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect /SOS (i cut some off, and instead of 2000 pro it will have some sort of XP id)

also, is windows seeing it as ATA 100?

[gouki]

You mean just add the '/SOS' line in my boot.ini file ?. Yes, Windows does detect it as an ATA100. What does the /SOS mean and are there any tweaks to make it boot up faster ?.

[turd]

well your loking at some boot.ini parameters -- think dos switch

/fastdetect usually added by 2k during instal but check for xp/nt
just instructs ntdetect.com not to check par and ser ports

/sos instructs NTLDR to display the names of drivers as the drivers load it will get rid of the blue bar and let you see what really goes on, watch where your hang time is -

/noserialmice
you could also speed up by disabling the mouse port that wiX does by default if u use bus mouse remember u need a space before a switch

but are u talking seconds, or what, some drag after your change is normal but what are we talking, have you tried just going to the device manager, removing your new drive and let windows pick it up again and see what happens?

[gouki]

Thanks !. Well, I tried installing the VIA drivers (bus mastering) but its still the same ! :( Thats bad. Anyway, I'll try and follow your advice. I'll let you know the outcome. Thanks a lot for the help !

[gouki]

I've tried booting up with the /SOS and I found out that it actually scans for the D: first instead of C: which is rather weird as my OS is in the first partition. What should I do to disable the disk checking ?

[turd]

check your jumpers make sure c is master d is slave, or put them both on CS make sure c is at the top/end cable, that scan for d 1st could be your problem

[gouki]

I've done that but its still the same. I really dont know why !!!. Is this suppose to happen ?. If theres a way to disable the checking of harddisks during startup, it might solve it. Anyway, I thank you a lot for all the help !!

[turd]

have you tried running Fixboot from your Recovery Console, or disabling drive d in the device manager, rebooting and then enabling it ---I seem to remember that Quantom is funny about jumping, did you try going with cable select (CS)for your two drives I would try that 1st.

[gouki]

Its already running on cable select now but its still the same. I tried changing it to Master and Slave respectively but its not doing any good as well. How about yours ?. Does it check for D: first or the C: ?. I doubt its my Quantum but probably its Windows itself !

[turd]

rem my system does what i tell it (:

I hope that both these drives are on one IDE cable? ( I assumed this from the start)

######DO FIRST-- jump both your drives to cable select, boot up still D-C OK now leave them on cable select, reverse their position on the cable, now what?





u dont say if you tried the Fixboot or the disable reboot?

also should of asked initally, check your device manager | IDE/ATA/ATAPI controllers | primary IDE Channel | Advanced settings and make sure that both are at Ultra DMA (DMA if available) see that both are set for auto detect, check your bios settings for each drive, make sure they are all on auto DMA.

do you have anything like a disk install/LBA utility on disk d from prior use?

u can check your boot.ini file and list what it says o the default line, but i thik your problems are somewhere else

[NotHisTechiness]

well, regardless of them both being ata100 the fact that you have 2 ides on the same channel means the computer has to work a little more cause it's more memory intensive. imo it's a small price to pay.