Starting-up XP takes 7+ minutes...

Hi!

Here's a nasty one I had never seen...

Fresh XP install over a fresh 12G NTFS partition, after a FIXBOOT and a FIXMBR console command. CHKDSK /P reports absolutely nothing wrong with the volume.

SP1 and zillions of MS patches went in like a charm. Same hardware and config as previously running for months; namely, A7M266-D c/w a pair of MP2000s, 256m PC2100, Maxtor D740X, ATI Radeon 7200, 3C905-TX nic, USB 2.0 and SB Live 5.1, 585w PSU.

Symptom: POST OK then black screen for 30-40 seconds, followed by white-dashed progress bar at the bottom (à la WIN2K style) instead of the usual logon "Windows XP Professional" splash screen. Intense HDD activity throughout. LASTS 7 MINUTES. Then resumes normal start-up with standard blue Welcome splash and behaves rationally afterward (if that much can be said of a WINAMD rig ;-)

Obviously some sort of ScanDisk or virus search is now part of the cold/hot boot process but no messages of any kind are ever displayed. Same thing for the so-called Safe Mode. Norton Systemworks was suspected but no menu options allows for this nuisance to be enabled/disabled. Bootvis (MS) utility does not start before NTLoader finishes so, no clue from this side of things.

I would be very grateful for any input or leads as to what exactly is going on here, before I escalate to "stronger" medicine...

TIA Dudes

 

First if you have System Works that is almost for sure it. If I were you I would uninstall it and use the CD as a frizbee to the closest trashcan.

How fresh is this install? Has it been on the www at all? If so remove Spy/Adware by using the following:

Spyware and adware removal
http://security.kolla.de/index.php?lang=en&page=download

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/downloads.html
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The peliminarys:

delete all files in \windows\prefetch or \wint\prefetch
Run Start-Programs-System-Disk cleanup

Reboot to safe mode clear event logs (clears the slate)
reboot immediately recheck logs (ignore the one about safe mode)

Post logs info back

D/L the folowing paste the results back to us before disabling startups

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/startuplist.zip

Download install the following (gives full simple control of startups) use it to stop all startups covers all 5 statrup locations. Virus scanner, firewall especially System works

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
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download and run XpAntiSpy read the description

http://www.webattack.com/get/xpantispy.shtml
_________________________________________________


Good luck let us know!

mike


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Hi Personne
Welcome to the boards!
I found a couple things for you to try? Here and here?

Daizy



Hiya Mike!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hi Daizy lady



Personne

I forgot, you mentioned bootviz not working. Go into it and tell it to run on next boot. Will not do this untill told to do so.

Mike

 

Tks for the pointers.

Nice motto, mflynn

How fresh ? Less than 24 Hrs. A dozen reboots at the most, mainly for driver and patches loading.

I did an unattended installation (hit enter once in a while and walk away) but AFAIK, it started before I ever got to apps and services installs; SystemWorks was in fact a (very futile) attempt to remedy.

As for Bootvis, I should have been more explicit: It ran allright and reported the following:

Disk Init: 1.18 s
Driver: 12.25 s, concurrent with
Prefetching: 14.2 s and
Registry & Pagefile: 1.70 s
Video took 1.62 s, followed by
Logon and Services: 14.31s

Total activity: 32 seconds flat.

What I meant by "Bootvis (MS) utility does not start before NTLoader finishes" is that the activity monitoring period that would be useful -in my case- ends at the 0 second mark on the charts. Sorry for the fog.

I also ran XPAntiSpy before begging for help, to no avail. I actually found it using the Search button from the top of this page )))

Tried yours, Daizy: No Go.

Let's get on with mflynn's wizardry; I will vacuum the prefetch file and get a clean events log file. The start-up list file is extensive; should I post all the sections ? The Startup Control Panel Applet looks a little like the MSConfig app... (which didn't yield anything yesterday).

 

Personne

ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE READY FOR THIS? Oookkk you asked!

Ok all that new info helps. So let us get down to bussiness.

In rereading your original message this morning I noticed something I missed last night. THIS SAME THING HAPPENS IN SAFE MODE!

Good to know but not good. This would seem to indicate this problem to be outside normal statrups. So after doing the basics below we will inspect the services closely.

Additional info needed, do you have any USB devices?

What kind of internet access? How is it connected, and is it thru a router? Do you have any kind of external HW firewall?

Is this computer on a network? If so how large? Is it a Domain controller, if so primary or 2nd etc? What network protcols are installed besides TCP/IP?

Are there any specialized (non typical applications) installed?

Are there any removable drives/devices like zip, orb MO or tape?

Does this unit have other physical HD's. How is each partitioned? How are the other drives including CD's and CDRW's connected (primary, slave etc). SCSI?

Was this an empty NTFS partition before install or did you let install create this partition. What about the other partitions, fat32 etc?

Tell me about the Pagefile size and location. Free space on Pagefile drive?

You mentioned normal operation after the 7 minute thing, so this means to me that everything works but what about performance, seem normal?

Don't forget to get me the event logs on first boot after clearing. Get these immediately on access to desktop before anything else. Since they were cleared in safe mode we now have only info on the last boot.

1. Install the StartUpList program. It will display a log in wordpad that you can simply copy, and then paste back in a message to us. If it is too long for 1 post then span it to 2 or more. Yes I need to see it before you use Startup control panel to disable any startups.

2. StartUp control panel does give Win98 like startup conrtol but it is more than that. It covers all 5 startup locations and where msconfig only allows on/off. StartupCpl allows this plus move to another startup type and delete with backup.

So after the staruplist. Uncheck all things added to startup after installation like Virus scanners, firewalls system works etc. After I see the startup list I may have more to add.

This is basic but when you don't do the basics it bites you in the butt. So command prompt chkdsk /r, this will require a reboot so do so. Report any unusual results or if takes unusually long time.

Make note of pagefile settings, resize to 0 then reboot and set back to original.

After this, defrag. All drives!!!

Enough for now!

I need all this info so please print this and go down the list when you post back.

All of this will eliminate many things and hopefully uncover a specfic thing to lock on to.

I do not really expect any of these to fix the problem but to hopefully uncover it! But if there is a problem with pagefile, disk error or severe defragmentation then it could.

Get thru this and we should be able to do the rest 1 issue at a time.

mike

 

Odd thing - I was following one of Daizy's ideas when I clicked on "device manager" I didnt get it, what I got was "console 1" whatever the hell that is. What's up with my comp ? Any ideas gratefully grasped.

 

Phil you will need to point me to the thread you used. I searched for all your threads and found nothing concerning Daizy in you posts.

Drop me a link so I can see what you may have done.

mike

 

No USB whatsoever.

DSL through Linksys router. Domestic LAN -me and the wife- on a p2p basis; local FTP for the occasional file exchange and archiving of the IBook. Static IPs, No DHCP, DMZ, port forwarding or Remote mgnt. XP pro on both stations, firewall disabled, limited directory-based file sharing (no root dir, no admin privileges).

The HDD is master on the primary IDE controller, CS jumpered, and is reported to be using UDMA 5 by both the BIOS and XP's device mgr. A 16X Lite-On DVD-ROM is Slave on the same channel, also CS jumpered, and is using UDMA 2. The secondary controller has a 12/10/32 CD-RW alone as Master device 0, using Multi-Word DMA 2; device 1 now has Auto-Detect option disabled (Daizy's suggestion).

PHP:

Partitions:     2
StartOffset:    0
EndOffset:      951a10400
BytesPerSector: 512
Capacity:       38170 MB
        DriveLetter: C:
        PartitionNumber: 1
        PartitionStart: 7e00
        PartitionEnd: 2f08e6e00
        SectorsPerCluster: 8
        BytesPerSector: 512
        Capacity: 12040 MB
        NumberOfFreeClusters: 2278249
        TotalNumberOfClusters: 3082463
        FileSystem: NTFS

        DriveLetter: D:
        PartitionNumber: 2
        PartitionStart: 2f08efc00
        PartitionEnd: 950d47c00
        SectorsPerCluster: 32
        BytesPerSector: 512
        Capacity: 26116 MB
        NumberOfFreeClusters: 1286428
        TotalNumberOfClusters: 1671446
        FileSystem: FAT32


The pagefile is at the root of c:\ and is 786Mb. the drive has 73% free space.

CHKDSK, DISKMGMT.msc, FDISK and other third-party utilities all report the drive and volume to be healthy. S.M.A.R.T. is enabled and no flags have popped-up.

Defragmenting ? The whole thing started with a brown-out during a defrag; this is what messed-up my previous install. This system purred nicely, folding like hell (2 client services), ripping MP3s and all until then. I'll give it another shot but, as I said before, the speed is optimal once the booting part is over with.

A low-level format is beginning to sound more and more appealing as this unfolds (pun intended), instead of borrowing your precious time. Let me give the rest of your instructions a try.

 

Ah Haa

Now you hit a nerve.

Confirm this OS as installed did at one time did work properly if only for an hour, I never understood this to be so?

Confirm also that this began after the bad defrag?

If so jump to the Pagefile step resize to zero.

If you just ran chkdsk

then do this at command prompt

chkdsk c: /r

then

chkds d: /r

Reboot

After it finishes the bootup chkdsk

on way back up, boot to safe mode again

Do nothing but shut down

Disconnect all cables from the computer except keyboard and mouse

Reboot to safe mode even again

Try the defrag now

If it does "brown out" make absolutly sure it is not still defragmenting.

If HD light is not flashing access does not nessesarily mean any thing, leave it for 30 minutes or more. If you do see a blink of the HD ever so often the processor is live, leave it much longer.

mike

 

Hi Personne

I'm not in your league or fellow poster's per technical hardware expertise. I recently upgraded to a new XP system. I noticed during bootup that S.M.A.R.T. was disabled for my 120GB/7200 RPM HDD. Ask the local building why... blah technical, blah technical and ADDS considerble time to bootup with no real benefit. Please don't flame my builder, the box is rock solid, boots to desktop in plus/minus 90 seconds. I'm sure all builders have there little tried true tricks. With horror stories equal to power outages during Defrag.. what a bummer. So take the S.M.A.R.T. suggestion as one builders "opinion ". Good luck

 

10-4 to that Dennis

But it won't add 7 minutes. I agree with your man. I typically run S.M.A.R.T thru install, setup and burnin then disable.

I then look to it and reenable if HD problems crop up later down the line.

Mike

 

>>Phil you will need to point me to the thread you used. I searched for all your threads and found nothing concerning Daizy in you posts.

Drop me a link so I can see what you may have done.

mike
<<

Mike, I found the problem - it was a VIRUS. The "W32 Yaha" one. I used a link kindly told to me by a fellow Brit on another of these kind of sites, as he too had had the problem and bingo ! - Got the b***** !
So now I can concentrate on finding out why my comp never works properly on first boot, and takes not much less time on the second !

 

>>HDD slowdown when booting<<
This is one of the sites Daizy suggested, and it says to go to the IDE area on device manager, onto advanced then on either 0 or 1 not greyed out.... unfortunately, they are BOTH greyed out. What do i do now ?

 

Back to "normal ", for now...

I was trying to avoid it but in the end, a wipeout and re-install is almost inevitable in some cases. I was willing (and so did one of you) to spend more time on an educated fix rather than resort to nuclear, but there is a limit to everything.

I ended-up using BCWipePD, a mean little app; multi-pass character rotation "shredding" of every sector on the platters, MFTs and MBRs included. Worth a look.

Thanks to all who chimed in.

 

Sorry all

I am traveling on bussiness since 6:00 Monday will not be home till Thurs.

Mike

 

I agree. Sometimes not worth the aggravation involved in tracking down strange, one-off problems and even if you found "the problem" you'd have to remain a little leary of the system.

Mike is always willing to troubleshoot longer than I am before just slicking the thing and starting over. I think because he doesn't fish and so has lots of free time on his hands.

 

Ok good to hear ordeal is over!

Newt, well I do fish a tiny bit, but not on the professional level that you do.

As for free time!!!!!!!!!! Yeah righttttt!

mike

 

As a footnote, I monitored carefully the new install and I witnessed the weird scan again but only once, upon reboot during the SP1 update. Still 30-40 secs of black screen with a very short 'progress bar' scan before startup. Nowhere near the 7 minutes encountered before, and never to be seen again afterward.

I had opted to archive the uninstall info, this time around. My take on the whole thing is that the SP1 went amiss and was trying to delete (compress ?) some absent temp or uninstall info, probably as part of a batch file that kept coming back because it had never been able to run its full course.

For the record - and what it's worth - I am grateful for you guys' help and support.

Have a cold one on me.