Disk Thrashing - disable ReadyBoot (not ReadyBoost)

luckman212 · Jan 19, 2010

Hello,
I am trying to figure out how to permanently disable the "ReadyBoot" feature in Windows 7 x64 (note: I am not talking about ReadyBoost, that's something else!)

I've checked out some guides that I found online, such as here or here. But even though they seem to work, after rebooting my system, I find that somehow ReadyBoot has re-enabled itself, and I am still getting tons of disk-thrashing at boot and Performance Monitor shows that it is the ReadyBoot.etl file that is getting all the attention.

I want to turn this off once and for all, does anybody know how?

jim0933 · Jan 19, 2010

ReadyBoot is related to ReadyBoost in that it involves "prefetching" of files.

ReadyBoot uses the ReadyBoost services to tackle one particular problem -- speeding up the processes of booting the system and recovering from hibernation. It keeps track of the files most often needed when the system boots and builds a temporary cache -- sort of a "Boot-Up's Greatest Hits" -- when the system starts. It can use flash wherever it finds it in either external flash devices or H-HHDs.

It sounds like you have an SSD and I don't believe ReadyBoot can be disabled for an SSD device.

Good luck.

Jim Pickering

luckman212 · Jan 19, 2010

I don't have an SSD (wish I did!) - just a single SATA-II hard drive attached to my mainboard's Intel ICH10R controller. The SATA controller is in "AHCI" mode - so as to enable hot-plugging of devices. Do you think this is why ReadyBoot will not stay "off"?

mdloops · Jan 20, 2010

The feature may be turned on but not actually doing anything. Readyboost and Readyboot are services that are implemented when you attach a flash drive to the system and identify it as a Readyboost drive. If you have not identified such a drive the features have no reason to interfere with your boot. Chances are, there are other programs that are loaded with windows that may be extending the time it takes for your system to boot.

Three ways you can look at what is loading.

Showing Services
Start -> Right Click on Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications

Showing Boot Apps
Start -> Type msconfig -> Startup

Showing Boot Apps 2
Start -> Type regedit -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/WINDOWS/CURRENTVERSION/RUN

luckman212 · Jan 20, 2010

hi, I think ReadyBoot is a boot-time defrag/optimization routine, not a service and I don't think it has anything to do with USB flash drives.... you are talking about ReadyBOOST I think.... because in my Performance Monitor I can see ReadyBoot.etl logfile is thrashing my disk like crazy on startup. Need to figure out how to disable this little bugger....

logicearth · Jan 20, 2010

Why are you concerned about trashing hard drives?
It would be wiser to just leave well enough alone.
Unless you want a slower boot up?

stormy13 · Jan 20, 2010

Just wondering if you have ever left it alone long enough for it to finish? All it should be doing is reading the last 5 trace.fx files which are created after booting, and comparing them to the current boot session and deciding whether to over-write any of the current ones or leave them.

I just checked on mine and the only time I can even find/see ReadyBoot.etl is during startup, and it disappears about 90 seconds later.

luckman212 · Jan 20, 2010

logicearth said:
Why are you concerned about trashing hard drives?
It would be wiser to just leave well enough alone.
Unless you want a slower boot up?

it just takes a really long time for my machine to boot, and its a quad-core q9650 w/ 8gb ram, wd caviar black 1tb and win7 x64. I think with those specs it should be a little faster. It literally takes about 3-4 minutes between when I log on to the machine before I can really "use" anything, because of the thrashing.

logicearth · Jan 20, 2010

It might work better if you did not keep destroying the cache ReadyBoot is creating. Everytime you turn it off, it removes the cache making it rebuild each time. How long ago has it been since you installed the OS or set it up with all your software and drivers?

Instead of messing with it, let it work out what it needs to.

Also, by chance are you using a solid color for wallpaper?

luckman212 · Jan 20, 2010

logicearth said:
It might work better if you did not keep destroying the cache ReadyBoot is creating. Everytime you turn it off, it removes the cache making it rebuild each time. How long ago has it been since you installed the OS or set it up with all your software and drivers?

Instead of messing with it, let it work out what it needs to.

Also, by chance are you using a solid color for wallpaper?

It doesn't matter how many times I reboot- there's the same 5 minutes of thrashing at every boot no matter what, even if I haven't disabled Readyboot. OS has been installed since Win7 became avail on MSDN. Not sure how long exactly, but probably around 4 months. Yes I use a solid color............ why? :huh:

stormy13 · Jan 20, 2010

As for the solid color,

http://www.sevenforums.com/news/56657-bug-solid-color-backgrounds.html

luckman212 · Jan 20, 2010

ah ha. what a weird bug.
anyway, I actually downloaded that hotfix, but when I went to install it, it said it was already installed. so I guess that wasn't my issue. as far as a solid desktop being 'depressing' I guess it depends how you look at it. looking at the same 5 desktop pictures over and over again might also be depressing for some. I use my computer for work mostly so I dont want kittens, flowers, grassy knolls etc back there they are just a distraction to me. Guess that makes me a nerd. oh well

mdloops · Jan 21, 2010

I am pretty stumped. I mean, your system is nice, but is lacking in the storage department. Running one 7200 RPM hard drive without any raid setup or dedicated hardware controller (real, like adaptec $200+ type) is not going to net you much performance when it comes to load times. Load times have not been cpu bound for some time now. Let me put it this way, when I went from a raid 1 with an onboard controller (quad proc, yada yada) to a raid 1 on an adaptec 2405 I gained something like 40-60mbps on average read speed and a few ms on seek. While your startup is slow, I am not too surprised because you have a severe bottleneck in the storage department. There is no single 7200rpm hard drive nor raid controller that comes packaged with a motherboard on the market that will provide great storage performance.

I can try to dig up all of my benchmarks to show that when it comes to performance upgrades people tend to skimp on storage which leads to poor performance.

luckman212 · Jan 21, 2010

i know what you mean. I actually did have a raid1 setup with 2 drives on an adaptec 5445 SAS PCI-E board. it was a real nice board, and with that setup I got around 140mb/sec out of the array vs. ~80mb/sec from the single drive on my ICH10R. The problem is, I installed a 2nd video card and it was too big to fit both video cards and the adaptec board together------- so I had to ditch the adaptec.

I am wanting badly to go to SSD but I keep hearing about all the problems with vendors not supporting "TRIM" etc etc combined w/ the still-too-high price/MB and I am staying away a little longer. Holding out for better price/performance a little later this year hopefully. I am hoping late-2010 will be the year of the SSD.

Rynooch · Jan 22, 2010

I don't think you have a bottle neck issue,
my system is a intel dual core, 4 gb ram, 500 gb 7200rpm SataII Drive running windows 7 64bit and from when i sign in till the desktop loads and ready is about 20 seconds.

Did this issue just start occurring, or have you had this issue ever since you installed windows 7?

luckman212 · Jan 22, 2010

I can't remember- I think it's been only since win7. I also have Outlook in my startup folder. I think that might be contributing to the slow startup times. Gonna try removing outlook from the startup & see if it helps...

luckman212 · Feb 19, 2010

bump, this is still puzzling me. is there NO way to completely disable readyboot on Win7?

01101001 · Feb 19, 2010

IMHO, a consistent slow boot and thrashing HDD would be cause enough for me to first
check the disk for errors. The easy route is to right-click the drive > Properties
> Tools. Click 'Check Now' under 'Error Checking'.

If all is well, take a peek in your Event Viewer (Start > run > eventvwr.msc >
Custom Views > Administrative Events). Look for 'Error' or 'Critical' events --
especially multiple entries of these.

These steps cannot hurt and just might help (even if readyboot ~seems~ to be the culprit).

And, to answer your question: Yes, ReadyBoot can be disabled -- via a few registry edits.
I hesitate to provide those here given the complexity of the Registry and the inherent risk of
making manual changes to it.

FWI, I have disabled SuperFetch, prefetch & readyboot on my SSD and, inspite of a mis-aligned
partition, my system REstarts in 31sec. However, all of these services and functions *should* be left
at their default settings on a HDD as Win7 does a superlative job of handling these boot optimizations.
Any changes should be for trouble-shooting only.

Good luck!

Grinch80 · Feb 20, 2010

luckman212 said:
bump, this is still puzzling me. is there NO way to completely disable readyboot on Win7?

Change the Superfetch parameters to operate on "boot only" and your thrashing will stop. Some will argue against this, but for me, I get no more thrashing, my boot times are fast, and the OS is plenty fast without Superfetch doing it's strange things.

Follow these instructions and set both EnableSuperfetch and EnablePrefetcher to "2". Then enjoy your PC without constant disk thrashing.

Change SuperFetch to Only Cache System Boot Files in Vista - the How-To Geek

kernelist · Mar 14, 2010

Configuration Windows 7, x64, 4 GB memory, AMD 3 cores, 420 GB HDD.
Superfetch, prefetch, readyboost and readyboot are maintained running.

I had this problem with files in the windows\prefetch\readyboot folder being constantly written into during the first 13 minutes after boot-up.
In this folder, I marked the following files as "read only" and the HDD postboot activity is now gone.

ecboot.dqpafm
ecboot.dqpafmsg
etlboot_1.dqpa
etlboot_1.dqpaf
fxboot_1.dqpa
fxboot_1.dqpaf
...
...
fxboot_10.dqpa
fxboot_10.dqpaf

I still have a rather fast boot-up time (times below in milliseconds)
<timing bootDoneViaExplorer="20558" bootDoneViaPostBoot="35258" osLoaderDuration="1799" postBootRequiredIdleTime="10000"

Disk Thrashing - disable ReadyBoot (not ReadyBoost)

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