Windows 7: "Starting Windows" - 2 minute timeout, CD not found

I have just installed 7600.16385 and have two problems: 1) a two-minute timeout while the "Starting Windows" screen is displayed while booting, and 2) CD/DVD drive does not show up in Device Manager.

System configuration in tech specs below.



I saw the same problem on both RC1 and 7264.

While booting, the system stalls at "Starting Windows" for 2+ minutes. This error message is in the event log:

I have updated the firmware on the DVD drive and motherboard to the most recently available versions. (Flashing the mobo eliminated another event log message about a "known firmware error" related to power management.)

At one time, I was finding five of these messages--for a ten minute delay eveyr time I booted as each message follows a 2-minute timeout. I changed the BIOS configuration for the IDE devices from "not installed" to "Auto" and Windows 7 seemed to like that better (even though there are no devices attached to the IDE port). Note that there are no IDE devices in this system. This error message says that the \Device\Ide\iaStor0 is not responding. If the "Ide" part of the message is to be believed, what is Windows trying to access?

The ICH7R is set to RAID, as two of the ports are used for a RAID 0 array. The JMicron JMB363, which the DVD drive is connected to, is set to Basic (I also tried AHCI with no change in results). There are two hard drives attached to the TX4302 but those drives are powered off.

A possibly related matter is that Windows 7 refuses to see my DVD drive (a SATA Samsung drive). Device Manager does not show any cd or dvd devices. (In build 7264, I used to see an event log entry saying that the cdrom device could not be found. I don't see that message in 7600, or at least haven't found it yet.)

Thanks for any advice!

Are all your drives being detected by your BIOS? Temporarily disconnect your optical drive, check with the BIOS to make sure, and see if that makes any difference to your bootup.

I have seen this problem occur when the Setup tries to load chipset and DVD drivers for his hardware...When I was reading about this over at MSFN they had to slipstream drivers into 7 with vLite to get the job done

Have you tried making a bootable Windows 7 install USB key?

All drives are detected properly by BIOS and entire system works fine with XP Pro.

I installed using a USB stick this time. With prior versions, Setup mostly said that CD/DVD drivers were needed. I say "mostly," because once Setup ran without complaining, but I decided to avoid that installation problem with this build by using a USB key.

If I need to add some drivers, which devices am I most likely to need drivers for, and where to get them? Mobo, JMB363, or Samsung DVD? None of those vendor sites say they have Win 7 drivers. I would appreciate any pointer you can give to other forums or web sites where this is discussed.

Are the two problems -- event 9 and missing CD drive -- known to be related?

Thanks.

Both Intel and JMicron have released new drivers recently.

I found and updated the Intel Matrix Storage drivers. This resulted in the name of the process generating the event 9 errors changing from iastorV to just iastor. But the timeouts still occur. From further tests, I see that the number of 2-minute timeouts and accompanying error messages varies from 1 to 5 (i.e., a 2 to 10 minute delay in starting Windows).

Still no cdrom drive.

I tried updating the JMicron JMB363 driver, but the system would not shut down successfully after I did that. I couldn't find a restore point to back out of that attempt either.

So, at this time I've updated firmware on all devices in the chain (mobo, on-board host adapter, and DVD drive) and all drivers except JMB363.

I may try installing the 32-bit version and see if that functions any differently.

I got the same mobo: Asus P5W DH DX, and my BIOS is 2901 which released a month ago.

Asus P5W DH DX download page:
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=m4cR4iaPdABNLtQa&content=download

(Release Note: Fix the system may BSOD after upgrading to Vista Service Pack 2.)

I found yours is 1602, it should be released two years ago. Is it anything to do with your problem? I am not sure.

But, to update the BIOS to the current version will be no harm, I believe. If that just meets your requirement, it'll be just marvellous!!

Woolswell - I had updated the BIOS to 2901 but forgot to change my system specs; I've done that now. 2901 fixed a power management error message but had no effect on the startup delay.

I would move the DVD drive to an ICH7R port.

I now believe the two problems are unrelated. I disabled the JMicron controller on the motherboard. That costs me the cd/dvd drive (which wasn't working anyway).

But the multiple 2-minute timeouts from iaStor while "Starting Windows" remains. I've updated all the firmware to the latest versions and installed Intel's latest Matrix Storage management drivers. All the new driver did was change the name of the process generating the event 9's from iaStorV to iaStor.

The multiple two minute timeouts render Windows 7 pretty much unusable as far as I am concerned. I can't think of anything else to try except to remove the RAID array, and that's not acceptable.

Any final suggestions?