Dual harddrives affecting computer boot speed/stability?

[AndarielHalo]

I have two harddrives, the primary one 584 GB, the secondary one 1.36 TB. When booting, my computer takes about a minute or two to fully load, but if I start to actually use it, virtually all programs will move slowly, consume lots of memory, explorer windows will take forever to load, and even cause my video card to stutter a bit.


A while ago, I unplugged the secondary drive, and found that my computer booted up much faster, and was infinitely more stable soon after loading.


But with two harddrives, in order to maintain stability, I often wait up to 5 - 10 minutes after booting to the desktop, just to be safe.



Is this a normal symptom of having two huge harddrives, both of which are filled with about 500 GB each, and programs like Norton security suite and messenger programs all needing to boot up? Or is this a problem with the second harddrive?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Does the secondary drive contain anything other than data?

For all we know, you have an antique processor and/or very little RAM, in which case anything is possible.

I would say it's not normal if you have a modern processor and at least 2 GB of RAM.

 

[AndarielHalo]

Nothing but data. The C Drive has a factory format image in itself that is only 12 GB large.


I have an AMD Athlon II X4 620 processor, 2.60 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 64-bit operating system, a Pegatron motherboard violet 3.02, a Corsair power supply unit 620W, my Windows Experience Index is 5.9 - Processor, Memory are 7.1, Graphics, and Gaming Graphics are 7.7, and Disk data transfer rate is 5.9

 

[F5ing]

In addition to what ignatzatsonic mentioned, it should take no more than a split second for the second HD to be recognized by the BIOS on boot.

Sounds like you need to use Task Manager, Resource Monitor and/or Process Explorer to see what's going on when you have the second drive connected. Did you add the second drive yourself?

 

[AndarielHalo]

Yes, I added it myself.


To further clarify I should say, the computer isn't taking this long to boot; technically I can use it and open programs and the like still, it's just that if I don't let it "warm up" for a few minutes after it's fully booted, programs can run slow, explorer windows take many times longer to load, etcetera.

 

[F5ing]

Try using the apps I mentioned to find the source (while the second drive is connected).

Also, have you done any virus/malware checks with anything other than your main AV app?

 

[Zepher]

The only thing more drives would cause is slightly longer POST in the bios as it id's the drives.
I've got 6 spinning drives and 2 SSD's in my system.

A failing hard drive can cause the system to boot and run slow though. Is the hard drive light constantly on for the few minutes it is booting?

 

[AndarielHalo]

I don't have a harddrive light. I highly doubt this is a case of failing harddrive unless the drive I got was DOA because this has been an issue since I first got the two of them together.

 

[F5ing]

Don't discount failure or failing. The most likely times a HD will fail is within either the first few months or many years later (not counting physical bumps). After you've had a new disk running for a few months you can then probably consider it as reliable for many more years.

Can't hurt to at least check what SMART has to say about the HD.

 

[3D Jed]

Is your anti-virus set to scan at boot? If so, a 2 HDD scan would take longer than a 1 HDD scan and slow the system till done.

 

[AndarielHalo]

I've been panicky and paranoid about the harddrive failing for many years now. I was highly suspicious of clicking noises being made by the computer when I transferred everything to a new case. (Fun fact; the clicking noises persist long after I shut off the computer, so it's just random shit creaking and clacking or the fans being chipped) But given that it has been at least two years now since that (and close to three since first getting both harddrives), I think that I am more likely to replace them before they start catastrophically failing.


This isn't something that has gotten worse over time, and there's no real risk of the system crashing, except until the point I got a new videocard which is subject to "Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered" messages whenever IE runs high on memory, which is more likely to occur if I play around on the computer before letting it "warm up" (though even then it takes a lot to actually induce this, and extremely rare to cause the display driver to do this twice in a row, leading to a system crash)


As for Anti-Virus, I can't say for certain. I have a Norton Internet Security suite that came with my cable subscription, and it includes some other Norton system works that only appears whenever it wants me to clear out old shortcuts and useless registry things. The product automatically does background scanning and such when I go idle for several minutes, but I wouldn't put it past the program to do some things automatically at startup.