Solved Where do I find out what Windows is doing during 10 minute boot?

[macnab]

From display of logo to log-in screen is taking from 2 minutes to 10 minutes. (It caries from boot to boot.) HDD light is so active it seems to burn continuously. It looks like defrag, but neither Windows nor Auslogics defrag has scheduled tasks.

CCleaner shows nothing in Startup that could be an "activity."

Where or how can I find out what Windows was doing all this time?

 

[Layback Bear]

My first thought would be going here.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html

Pay close attention to # 7 & 8

Please read instruction carefully and let us know what you decided to do and the results.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello Mac have you tried looking in msconfig on the start up tab?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html?filter[2]=Performance Maintenance < point 7 and I like method 3 in the sub tutorial


Oops sory Bear we must have been posting at the same time

 

[macnab]

Just checked startup items with msconfig. There is nothing there that isn't shown by CCleaner. They are all things like MSSE, Adobe ARM and Speed Launcher, Winpower Agent.

Nothing that could account for 5 minutes of disk activity during bootup. The same with servises - they use memory (and a bit of bootup time) but nothing on this scale.

EDIT: What I am looking for is a log file to see what was done during the boot process. I can then refer to the timestamps to see what took so long.

 

[Layback Bear]

What anti virus are you using?

This is mine.

 

[DavidE]

Just checked startup items with msconfig. There is nothing there that isn't shown by CCleaner. They are all things like MSSE, Adobe ARM and Speed Launcher, Winpower Agent.

Nothing that could account for 5 minutes of disk activity during bootup. The same with servises - they use memory (and a bit of bootup time) but nothing on this scale.

EDIT: What I am looking for is a log file to see what was done during the boot process. I can then refer to the timestamps to see what took so long.

If you can't find/fix the issue with the suggestions already given, you could use these tutorials to see if you can find the problem:

1) Boot in Safe Mode
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/69585-safe-mode.html

2) Do a Clean Startup
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html

3) Gather a Startup trace
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...up-shutdown-sleep-hibernate-reboot-trace.html

 

[macnab]

Will try Startup trace, and also procmon boot log and see where the delay is.

 

[gigagiggles]

Event Viewer via Control Panel/Administrative Tools may be worth a gander. Shut down the computer, wait an hour, and then boot up. After the computer settles down, go to the Event Viewer and there will be a list of Critical, Errors, et al. that may have populated within the last hour. If there is, then your investigation begins.

 

[macnab]

Hmm, Event Viewer shows lots and lots of disk errors and warnings from this morning.

1) I can't remember what time I rebooted this morning and had the problem, so I can't relate to event viewer times..
2) I was having a problem with an HDD that was "disappearing" while copying a file to it.
3) Booted with Partition Wizard disk - the Linux boot section reported lack of response from that HDD and when running showed the disk as non-existent.
4) Fiddled with cables to HDD - stopped disappearing and boot time is back to normal.

But if the disk was giving problems I can't see Windows spending 5 minutes with disk activity trying to get it going. Twenty to thirty seconds, yes, minutes, no.

I will just have to look at all the logs after tomorrow's boot - if it is slow! It is difficult when sometimes it boots normal and sometimes with the long delay of disk activity. And I am not exaggerating the 10 minutes - I make a cup of tea and drink it while catching up with the news on TV during boot.

We shall see.

 

[Magissia]

Hello, a hardware problem CAN cause this.

For example, i had a damaged velociraptor with random I/O errors, sometimes it was working perfectly, sometimes i wasn't able to read/write on some blocks of the hard drive.

I didn't had as much problems you have actually because my system partition was not on this drive.


An other similar problem i had was on a 7 years old computer, the SATA cable got damaged (i don't know how) and the drive was sometime not deteced, same situation, it was not the system drive, so it was not causing problems during boot.

Please note(1) that you may be able to avoid some problems in the future by making sure the cable never do a 90° fold, it may cause data lose and/or make the drive not work properly. If you need for a reason to do a 90°, you should take a cable with the 90° angle part already made on it (like on this picture, with one side straight, the other turning at 90°)

(1) Source : Western digital hard drive documentation and Kingston's SSD documentation

 

[macnab]

@Magissia: All my connections are straight, no problem there. But I have 4 HDDs and 2 optical drives, so I have a lot of cables. This gives me problems because they are all pushing against each other.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well it might be worth running hard drive test on the boot drive try SeaTools for Windows | Seagate

 

[JimLewandowski]

Have you looked in the Event Viewer log for:

Application Services and Logs
Microsoft
Windows
Operational

Look for 100 events.

Cut and paste here by double-clicking and then when the popup opens, COPY tile in lower left.

 

[gregrocker]

Test the HD now using the maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan followed by a full Disk Check with both boxes checked.

I'd also work through the other Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 to go over it good.

One important thing to know is if the boot time improves with any or all of the other HD's unplugged. If so then figure out which HD is culprit.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Test the HD now using the maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan followed by a full Disk Check with both boxes checked.

I'd also work through the other Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 to go over it good.

One important thing to know is if the boot time improves with any or all of the other HD's unplugged. If so then figure out which HD is culprit.

Yep Greg I saids to test out the boot drive in post #12 cos I thought it sounded like it was a Seagate out of the 4 drives the OP has in but didn't hear anything back.

 

[macnab]

I cannot get the problem to occur again. The only thing I did/change was replug on of the data drives.

In light of the problem disappearing, I am closing this ticket.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.

 

[Layback Bear]

I'm assuming you completed the suggestions in post #10 by Magissia and so far it has solved your problem.
Is that correct?

 

[macnab]

I have been having problems with boot time for a few days.

I can go for weeks without accessing my E: drive. Yesterday I noticed a problem writing to it (disappearing from Explorer.) I fiddled with the cables and it came right.

Because I so seldom access it, it could have been the source of my boot problems, without me being aware that the drive was giving problems.

I hope it was, because that will mean that the problem won't occur again.

 

[CatchMyDingo]

I had a this exact same issue myself recently and the system would take anything from 15 - 20 minutes to fully boot and without any apparent causes. Although on my Windows XP machine I suspect this issue can still affect Windows 7 machines also. The eventual culprit turned out to be a faulting Seagate Barracuda SATA drive (D-Drive) which kept disappearing from the system at boot. Eventually the drive failed S.M.A.R.T. testing which eventually led me to the culprit.., a CORRUPT RECYCLE BIN on the D-Drive!!

Evidently the corruption occurred when the faulting drive kept disappearing, and I only later discovered this when Seagate sent me a replacement drive. As soon as I formatted the drive giving it the same partition letter the error message appeared. I followed an online tutorial on how to delete the corrupt recycle bin so that Windows could recreate it and BINGO.., the slow boot problem was gone.

Given that you have also been experiencing disappearing drive issues this may be worth investigating, a faulting hard drive or dodgy cable can easily cause corruptions to occur which then impact on the systems integrity.

Hopefully this helps?

 

[macnab]

Well, I have had the problem since - just jiggle the cable each time. I will look for the Recycle Bin solution for Windows 7 and give it a go. Can't do any harm.