Slow Boot Up in windows XP

Hi everyone. This forum has been very helpful in the past removing my viruses and spyware. I have a new problem.

My girlfriends computer is very slow to boot up taking about 10 minutes each time. It runs OK after boot up is done but is slow to come out of hibernating mode. So far I have

1. removed most of the unnecessary files from the msconfig start up area.
2. downloaded and ran bootvis
3. defragmented the hard disk

I did look at the eventlog and it has a few errors- could this be causing the boot up time to be long? Please give me a hand with this- I know very little about computers but the last person who helped me was able to walk me through fixing my own computer which I must say was very rewarding! Thanks to all.

 

Mostly slow to boot up. Ten mintues seems like forever when you are trying to do something. The windows screen comes up fine then goes to the normal screen and just sits while it very slowly loads the icons in the lower right hand corner. I am running avast, spybot, and comodo firewall- did a scan and nothing was found so I don't think that's it. I really think it has to do with the programs loading during start up and may be those time out errors on the event log. Any ideas on how to make it boot faster? Thanks again.

 

Hi Buck,

A couple of questions...

How much free space does your girlfriend have on the Hard Drive?

How much memory does the system have? And under load (Task Manager-> Performance Tab -> Physical Memory) how much is in use?

As Steve suggested turn off hibernation, unless you have a real need for it then it's best not to use it.

Let me know the above and we can take it from there.

 

You might want to post the contents of task manager after the system is done booting.

 

Hi Wildfire:

Sorry for the delay but I had to get home from work first.

She has a 34 gig hard disk and 18 gigs free
She has 248 megs ram. Under the performance tab of the task manager it says CPU usage 4%, PF usage 443mb, total physical memory 253308 of which 74000 is available and 89000 being used.

How do I post the contents of the task manager for you guys to see?

Let me know what the next step is.

Buck

 

It's a fairly low spec machine but 10 minutes to boot is still excessive. A fair comparison is the laptop I'm using at the moment and that easily boots fully within 2mins.

The pagefile usage does seem a little large to me though but before we look at that could you back up (at least the data) the drive and run chkdsk and (especially if FAT32) defragment the drive.

To check the drive open my computer, right click on the drive select properties then the tools tab, click "Check Now... ". After the check if no errors do the same but select "Defragment Now..." rather than Check Now.

You'll probably have to reboot during the above but follow the prompts making sure to answer yes to schedule the task for next startup.

This'll take a few hours Buck so I'd suggest you let it start then start your celebrations for 2009.

Post your findings and we'll look at the next steps to take.

 

Sorry wildfire.....could you walk me through backing up the machine. Then I'll do whatever you need me to. Sorry I need to be spoon fed....Thanks.

Buck

 

OK,

First of all we need backup media, in order of preference

A second hard drive
A DVD Burner
A CD Burner

Do you have any of the above?

 

She has a DVD rom.

 

Sorry wildfire...I realize this is just to read DVDs...next to it, it also says it is a cd rewrite so it looks like we're stuck with a CD burner right? Thanks.

 

A DVD Rom is no good, we need something we can write to.

Does she have recovery discs for the system and additional programs, if so backing up the data (My Documents etc.) would be a lot easier, but writable media is still required.

Buck, perhaps it's best if you can supply the Make and Model of the computer and I can see what options are available.

I will say whether you need to back up or not to resolve this particular issue is irrelevant, you should always have a backup procedure in place.

Edit: I missed your post whilst typing mine

Yes, if CD is the only option I'd recommend you back up the Data, but make sure you have original/backup media for OS and other software.

Let me know how you would like to continue.

 

Hi wildfire.

I looked through the house and she doesn't have a back up disk for software- usually she keeps everything- is it possible that its came loaded on her computer from the store?

Her computer is a Dell Inspiron B130. I have a toshiba satellite. Neither have been backed up. Would you mind telling me about backing these up then we can progress with the attempt at speeding up her boot up? Thanks....by the way I do have a CD from Toshiba that says its a recovery and applications DVD for my computer.

Buck

 

Yes, it's also possible that her only OS back up is on that drive, I'll look into things tonight and get back to you tomorrow regarding making recovery CD's.

If it's only data you want backed up then as Pete suggested get some memory sticks or blank CD's. If you want to back up entire systems then external USB hard drives are the best option.

Don't lose it, it's no good for your girlfriends Dell but you will need it, in fact I suggest you copy it now and leave the copy in a safe place. eg your mother in laws, you're not going there unless you need to are you .

 

Thanks again wildfire.....no the mother in-laws place would be a safe venue for the disks. I'll back up just our personal files to CD on each of the laptops. Let me know when you find out about the Dell and what the next step is!

Buck

 

Sorry Buck,

I got caught up in some impromtu late celebrations yesterday and forgot all about your problem. I'm downloading the Dell manual now and will get back to you within the next hour or so.

 

Hi Buck,

If you no longer have the owners manual then please download it from here.

I draw your attention to Solving Problems -> Restoring Your Operating System (page 75 on the version I downloaded).

Read this carefully and let me know how you would like to proceed, there's no indication of making backup CD's for the Dell but a restore to factory default may be possible.

 

Thanks Wildfire. I have since made CD copies of all of her pictures, word docs, etc on the hard disk. I also read over the owner's manual link- the portion you pointed me to at least. Seems like the system has a built in back up that backs up everything except personal files. So should be all set right? Any recs on what to do next? Thanks.

Buck

 

No, I'd read it as restoring the system to the way it was when your girlfriend bought it. You've backed up personal data files but do you have the setup files/CD's of programs that were installed since the computer was purchased?

Once we've established that you can restore the system to a state that your girlfriends happy with then we can tinker around and see what's causing this bootup delay without worrying about destroying existing data.