Windows booting *incredibly* slow with multi HDD...?

[IceWilly]

So, I am very experienced computer builder. Ive worked as a network tech, built countless computers for others and my own and dealt with any problems imaginable... and i am stumped.

athlon 64 3200+
DFI Lanparty NF4 ultra-d
2x512 OCZ platinum rev2 (pc3200)
geforce 6800gt (pci-e)
raptor 74gb 10k rpm (sata)
wd caviar 200gb 7200 (ide 0)
dvd rom (ide 1)



Heres the deal, my computer had been running a bit slow so I downloaded the newest gfx drivers and while they were installing the power went out. I rebooted and I got a weird graphics error. Long story short, I gave up and reformatted my computer. Before the format i was running two (2) harddrives a WD raptor 74gb (sata) and a WD 200gb caviar. There were two (2) primary partions on the raptor (1 windows 1 games) and the entire 200gb hdd was for data.

So, i reformat. I wipe the 74gb clean, make a 30gb partition and install windows. Everything goes alright, installs fine. I reconnect the data disk after, and instead of the Windows loading bar taking 4 seconds on start up, it goes all the way up to hanging there for 1 minute plus. Ok, maybe a faulty install, I wipe it and install again. Same deal. But if I disconnect the data hdd (200gb) and the dvd rom it boots up as quickly as ever. Now this is JUST during boot up, once its loaded everything works great.

So, because it is just boot up I got about my troubleshooting:
1) check jumper settings
sata - 74gb
ide0 - 200gb hd (jumper on CS)
ide1 - dvd rw (jumper set on CS, i think)
--- these seem to check out, not fighting for boot priority or forcing a master drive. Also these were UNCHANGED from how it was before my power outage mishap and everything worked great then

2) Check the CMOS.
-clear cmos: nothing
-update/flash cmos: nothing
-check cmos settings for quick boot, boot disk priority etc: nothing

3) Now i get a little more desperate, i try all combinations of drives plugged in. With ANY other drive than the main 74gb windows hdd it runs slow, when its all alone its like lightning.

4) I try installing windows on some old HDDs to test if its just my 74gb being a problem, windows doesn't seem to want to install on them and gives me disk errors on two seperate harddrives that previously worked. (no idea why the installs didn't take)


At this point i am lost. It doesn't feel like there is a problem identifying the drive to boot to, as it gets to the windows loading screen very quickly. But once on the windows loading bar screen, it takes INCREDIBLY long, (3 scrolls normally, 40+ with other drives attached). If the drives amazing hooked up alone, how could it be a problem with the drive?

Any ideas? i appreciate the help.

 

[fabulouscoops]

Did you install the mobo chipset drivers after the windows install?
Is the hardrive set to PIO instead of DMA?

 

[ninjacore]

When you reinstalled the OS, did you delete the old partition?
I don't know a ton about the topic, but during one of my past reformats, I forgot to delete the old partition and windows was INCREDIBLY slow.

 

[IceWilly]

Yes, i did install the chipset drivers from the Nvidia website, including the IDE SW drivers that were included. Also, i totally wiped out the OS HDD (74gb) before i created the new partition and installed.


I don't know the PIO setting you are refering to, is this on the SATA disk or on one of the IDE drives?... I can't imagine its a jumper setting because it worked flawlessly for a year before this happend with the exact same configuration.

But i am open to all ideas, thanks for the help

my sata disk has a jumper with 4 options:
ssc_dis (currently set as this, from factory)
pm2
opt1
opt2

 

[fabulouscoops]

http://kb.iu.edu/data/agnn.html
http://techpatterns.com/forums/about134.html

PIO and DMA are transfer protocols for IDE channels. Hope this helps.

 

[IceWilly]

thats good information, but unforunately in my case both were set up correctly already. That is, my 2nd hdd was running in DMA mode 5 (ata-100)

shucks, i was hoping that would work too.

very annoying though, i have probably reformatted 4 times in the past with this exact configuration without a hitch ever, but this time sometimes goes drastically wrong, =/

 

[JimmyG]

You might want to try deleting the partitions on the Raptor and loading windows on the entire blank drive. You don't gain much by using partitions anyway IMO. Also, load the Raptor with no other hdd's connected. Then, connect up the data drive and see what happens.

 

[mrgreenjeans]

Is there a windows partition on the other drives that could be 'confusing' windows? I've had that happen before. Delete the old installation if possible.

 

[Rogue505]

Did you try disabling any unused controller channels in both bios and windows' control panel? Sometimes it helps.

 

[IceWilly]

You might want to try deleting the partitions on the Raptor and loading windows on the entire blank drive. You don't gain much by using partitions anyway IMO. Also, load the Raptor with no other hdd's connected. Then, connect up the data drive and see what happens.

This is how i did it, i wiped the whole drive clean. With just the raptor i created a single partition and installed windows... same deal. By loading the raptor, do you mean booting up windows? Like ive said previously, when its connected solo it boots fine, and instantly. But whenever anything else is connected, even after windows is fully installed it screws up.



Another point that might be of some use is that often when i reinstall windows i have some problems. I am unable to format my Raptor with other harddrives installed. I wipe the drive clean, saying 74gb space unassigned or w/e. I make a partition but instead of it giving me and option to format NTFS/FAT etc, it says invalid windows partition, and cannot install windows xp. If i disconnect the other hard drive, this does not occur and it goes directly to the format selection (ntfs/fat). Haven't figured that one out yet but it could be the same problem. The inconsistency is that I have had to do that in past reformats with this same setup, but the end result of slow windows booting did not occur then, just this time around.

Is there a windows partition on the other drives that could be 'confusing' windows? I've had that happen before. Delete the old installation if possible.

No, there are no other partitions on either disc, just 2 HDDs and 1 partition on each. I have read on forums about multiple partitions causing a slow down as the bios and/or windows attempts to identify them. Unfortunately this isn't my problem, the bios doesn't bat an eye identifying them and no slowdown occurs until the windows loading bar.

Did you try disabling any unused controller channels in both bios and windows' control panel? Sometimes it helps.

I'm not quite sure what other channels I can disable. I use ide0 and ide1 for drives etc, my floppy ide and 1 of the 4 sata drives. What else would there be unused?



I appreciate all the help, its incredibly frustrating to have to wait 2 mins on a windows boot up after a simple driver install etc. It makes it 10x worse to know that non of the hardware seems to be faulty.

 

[JimmyG]

I have one more suggestion. Beg, borrow, or steal another IDE hdd. Plug that in along with your second hdd. Try to load windows. If it works OK, then I would suspect either a bad Raptor or a bad mobo (sata controller).

 

[IceWilly]

well, I have 2 Ide Hdd sitting on my desk, and old 60gb maxtor 5600 rpm that started clicking and a good quality 80gb WD 7200 rpm caviar (RMA replacement, like new)

I actually tried to load windows on to the western digital, but after I went through the cdrom boot up and installed the OS, when it rebooted from the DOS windows install i got a Invalid System Disk Error. Tried the install again, same problem. Ditto on the old Maxtor drive. So it installed from the disc, but never reached the prettier GUI XP install that comes after it copies all the files over from the CD-rom.

Bad cd-rom maybe? for 2 HDD's that have worked in the past to fail while installing windows xp was pretty odd. I would have tried to round up another XP disc but at this point i was so frustrated with no having a computer i just dealt with the slow boot up of my raptor.

If/when i get some time where my computer can be down for a day or two, i'll find a new Windows XP disc, install on the WD 80gb i have sitting on my desk and see what happens. but if windows fails to install on that... i really have no idea. These problems don't seem to be corresponding to one another unless i am missing something..



Edit: Also, I must mention that I think I can even feel the slowdown when copying the files for windows to install, as well as a VERY apparent slow down when I reach the pretty GUI XP install on my Raptor Drive (after cdrom copy etc). When i first build this rig, it installed in like 8 mins with my raptor, now it takes upwards of 15-20. Man i don't want to RMA my raptor, but I would if i could make sure that was the prob.

 

[JimmyG]

I'm beginning to suspect a bad mobo or bad ram. My first choice would be the mobo. I think the CD ROM is less likely because your problem started out of the blue with the OS already installed on the Raptor.

 

[smokie mcpott]

dont install the nvidia ide drivers, there are numerous occasions that the nvidia ide drivers cause instability

 

[IceWilly]

I'm beginning to suspect a bad mobo or bad ram. My first choice would be the mobo. I think the CD ROM is less likely because your problem started out of the blue with the OS already installed on the Raptor.

I thought it may be the ram as well, so I ran memtest 86+ for an hour with zero errors. Also, is it possible anything could be screwed up when the computer works so well when just one harddrive is attached? The IDE sw driver thing I may remove and see if anything changes.

 

[IceWilly]

Well i am bumping this buried thread because I finally resolved my issue.

Whether it was a dead harddrive or the IDE SW drivers i will never know. I rma'ed my raptor because i was worried i heard it clicking, reformatted and reinstalled windows only to have the same problem as before.

I did a new google search and either I missed all the information before or it is a common problem happening lately. They talk about problems with the SW IDE drivers and such and disabling the Command Queueing in the Device manager SATA controller tab.

I installed the newest nvidia chipset/sata drivers to give me access to disabling this feature, but before i could get to the control panel it booted in 3 seconds... down from a whooping 60+ seconds.

Needless to say i was so happy i almost jumped out of my chair. I can only think it was a combination of bad drivers and possibly a faulty harddrive as I know i checked the newest chipset drivers last time i had this problem.

Good luck to all who had the same problem, i can finnally get back to using my computer and not fearing it will lockup and crash at any moment

 

[mrgreenjeans]

Thanks for posting the cure. Too often everyone comes crying but forgets to let us know what the final diagnosis was.
Keep on keepin' on.

 

[-N()VA-]

I am curious

I have several Nforce 4 and Nforce 570 computers I have set up, they boot to Sata hard drive, should I go back and uninstall the sw ide driver from nvidia? do I need to worry about this if the only ide device in the computer is the dvd drive?

also, anyone have a good link to some info about how to optimize windows to boot faster, or just hard drive optimization in general, I know there are several things you can do to increase boot speeds but have no detailed info

thanks guys

 

[Clockwork_Apple]

I have a similar problem, I have an 80GB SATA Samsung SP drive as XP boot drive, then a 250GB IDE Maxtor for storage, my XP loading screen hangs everytime without fail for about 20 seconds. If I remove the second IDE HDD, the problem disappears.

Also, my PC will NEVER boot correctly on a cold boot, I always have to cut it off at the PSU and retry and it works fine. The XP loading screen hangs indefinately, and the reset button/ctrl+alt+delete don't respond.

I always put it down to the fact that my motherboards on-board SATA controller is a bit crap. I've learnt to live with it sadly

 

[JimmyG]

I have a similar problem, I have an 80GB SATA Samsung SP drive as XP boot drive, then a 250GB IDE Maxtor for storage, my XP loading screen hangs everytime without fail for about 20 seconds. If I remove the second IDE HDD, the problem disappears.

Also, my PC will NEVER boot correctly on a cold boot, I always have to cut it off at the PSU and retry and it works fine. The XP loading screen hangs indefinately, and the reset button/ctrl+alt+delete don't respond.

I always put it down to the fact that my motherboards on-board SATA controller is a bit crap. I've learnt to live with it sadly

Very often prolems like this are due to corrupted windows or drivers. Try a clean reload.