second drive slows boot??

Snykch · 30 Apr 2011 at 14:31

On a completely clean install to my ssd, windows boots in 8 seconds flat (3 to logon, 5 to desktop). If I then plug in my 2TB seagate data drive the boot time slows to 21 seconds (15 & 6).

I don't really understand where this slowdown is coming from, as there's nothing extra being loaded at all.

Any idea what causes this slowdown and how I can eliminate it?

Thanks.

Surveyor · 30 Apr 2011 at 14:35

I assume the system detects the HDD and has to wait for it to spin up before it can go any further.

If that's the case I don't see what can be done.

Snykch · 30 Apr 2011 at 15:03

An extra 12 seconds just to detect a disk seems ridiculous

Surveyor · 30 Apr 2011 at 15:13

Snykch said:
An extra 12 seconds just to detect a disk seems ridiculous

I'm only guessing but it seems the likely suspect.

A mechanical HDD takes several seconds to spin up before it can be read.

shine · 30 Apr 2011 at 16:56

Sounds about right on my old desktop it would take longer for the bios to initialise all my drives etc than it would to boot into Windows!

Snykch · 1 May 2011 at 01:54

Well, I downloaded the MS Performance Toolkit and ran a boot trace to see what was slowing things up, and it turns out autochk.exe was causing all the slowdown. Tried altering the settings so that it would ignore my storage drives, but it never made any difference. In the end I've just deleted the registry entry that executes it during boot, and now I'm back to booting to desktop in the times I'd expect from having my OS on SSD.

Info here

Just delete the value of the BootExecute key.

Surveyor · 1 May 2011 at 02:16

Snykch said:
Well, I downloaded the MS Performance Toolkit and ran a boot trace to see what was slowing things up, and it turns out autochk.exe was causing all the slowdown. Tried altering the settings so that it would ignore my storage drives, but it never made any difference. In the end I've just deleted the registry entry that executes it during boot, and now I'm back to booting to desktop in the times I'd expect from having my OS on SSD.

Info here

Just delete the value of the BootExecute key.

I'm glad you've managed to save those few seconds.

Make good use of them.

shine · 1 May 2011 at 02:27

You do realise you'll lose any early warning of drive issues on your data drive now? Is that worth 13 seconds?

Surveyor · 1 May 2011 at 02:31

shine said:
You do realise you'll lose any early warning of drive issues on your data drive now? Is that worth 13 seconds?

Obviously it must be.

I was going to warn him about turning it off but in the end I couldn't be bothered.

I just gave the OP the benefit of the doubt and assumed he knew what he was doing and the risks he was taking.

No doubt when he installs a few things like anti virus software and that adds another 2 seconds to the boot time he'll turn that off as well :rolleyes:

Snykch · 1 May 2011 at 02:40

But you can find the time to be condescending?

All input appreciated, guys.

Surveyor · 1 May 2011 at 03:07

Snykch said:
But you can find the time to be condescending?

It wasn't that I didn't have the time.

I just couldn't be bothered.

If you want to disable important checks to save a few seconds then that's your look out.

You know what the situation is now. You can choose to leave it or put the check back in place.

Snykch · 1 May 2011 at 04:36

I knew the situation. If drives were shutdown improperly it will advise me that I might need to check the disk for errors. Since I'm the only person with access to my PC, I'm fairly certain that I'll know when it hasn't been shutdown properly, and I'm certainly capable of running chkdsk manually if required.

Again, thanks for the input and warnings, I do appreciate it.