ntbtlog - very big, with lot of 'did not load driver'...Pls help!!!!

[miniblob]

Hi all, first post on here so hoping you guys can help we with some win 7 problems I've been having for a while now...

Machine is a Dell Studio XPS Laptop, maybe 18 to 24 months old, running Win 7 Ultimate x64.

It all started with the 'please wait...' screen which hangs for ages before letting you login, where you then discover various services have not started & will not start!!!
Constant re-boots normally encourage a working startup so I've been working round it and poking at it occasionally as time allows!!!

This has all led me to look at the boot log...... and I don't like what I've found!!!

The top line shows: Service Pack 1 6 6 2012 14:38:21.595
followed by loads of 'loaded driver...' - great.

Then I see a lot of repetition of the following fails...
Did not load driver @hal.inf,%acpi_amd64.devicedesc%;ACPI x64-based PC
Did not load driver @battery.inf,%*compbatt.devicedesc%;Microsoft Composite Battery
Did not load driver @cpu.inf,%intelppm.devicedesc%;Intel Processor
Did not load driver @battery.inf,%acpi\acpi0003.devicedesc%;Microsoft AC Adapter
Did not load driver @battery.inf,%acpi\pnp0c0a.devicedesc%;Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery

Why so many occurences of these??? Does it keep retrying until it hits a timeout limit???

Then it loads more drivers, with a few random fails in between, such as:
Did not load driver RDPCDD.SYS
Did not load driver RDPREFMP.SYS
Did not load driver Wanarpv6.SYS
Did not load driver TermDD.SYS
Did not load driver mssmbios.SYS
Did not load driver discache.SYS
Did not load driver blbdrive.SYS
Did not load driver ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS
Did not load driver @usbvideo.inf,%usbvideo.devicedesc%;USB Video Device

Some of these are repeated again further down, but so are loads of the first lot, again!!!

Then it shows: Service Pack 1 8 18 2012 14:46:48.610
where more of the same happens!!!

And all this when it has booted up properly and appears to be working perfectly!!!
Who knows what it would show on a failed boot!!!

My questions, (apart from how do I fix this!), include:
Should it keep retrying the same driver after it's failed???
Is there a timeout on each of these which is why it sometimes takes so long to boot???
Why would these only fail sometimes and not everytime I boot???
Should there be lines for Service packs???
Is the bootup always added to rather than overwritten/replaced??? Is nothing ever removed???
If drivers which are not needed can be seen in the bootlog, how can I remove them???

Even if they are needed, how do I remove drivers or replace lines from the boot???
I'm led to believe there isn't a 'boot file' as such, like the scripts/program files used way back in the day???

Any ideas/info/advice greatly appreciated, as this is my business laptop and it is becoming a problem which affects my business more and more, so needs sorting!!!

Cheers,
Rob.

 

[miniblob]

Wow!!! 294 views and no help so far!!!!

I take it not too many people know the ins & outs of how win 7 boots???

 

[edwar]

Please post the location of this file you are looking at. I did a search of my system, Win 7 Pro, and did not find a file called ntbtlog.

 

[Britton30]

Wow!!! 294 views and no help so far!!!!

I take it not too many people know the ins & outs of how win 7 boots???

This will encourage a lot of volunteers to help you. :huh:I have no ntbtlog on my system either.

 

[miniblob]

You have to enable boot logging in Win 7 - F8 while booting gives the option, which is how I got one!!!

The file is C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt

Sorry if my previous comment puts people off from helping me - I just thought that with the amount of activity and experts on here, someone would have had something to say on this!!!

 

[edwar]

Ok now I have one and I see things like Did not load Driver \SystemRoot\xxx\xx\xxx\xx and so on for certain things.

Most of what I saw in my file where to be expected. One was a serial.sys driver, I have no serial ports on this computer.
a VGA.sys driver and then 4 consecutive did not load for NDProxy.SYS.
I would suspect Windows tries to load some drivers by default that aren't really needed and so those fail to load once Windows sees that they are not needed.

Lets get back to your problem. Why did you do a Boot Log boot in the first place. What problem are you having that made yo do that.

 

[miniblob]

Thanks for the response Edwar...
The original problem is that Win 7, more often then not, hangs at 'Please Wait' for a random (and long!!!) amount of time, before letting me login!!! If it hangs like that, logging on just reveals a range or errors, graphics not displaying properly, windows aero not working, audio not working, sometimes no internet connectivity.... and then won't shut down, so has to be switched off!!!
It tells you what service has failed, but that seems to be in a chain and none of them all the way back will restart!!!
I have fixed this several times through different methods and a week later, I'm back where I started - having had no new software, system changes, updates, etc!!!
Continuous resets of the machine until it doesn't hang before login means all then works perfectly!!!
Sometimes that happens first time, sometimes it can take 3, 5, 10, or more resets - which can take hours when it hangs for 10 mins before letting me restart it!!!

This ntbtlog was something else I found whilst trying to see what was failing during boot up!!!

So I assume from your reply, you don't know of a way to stop windows trying things it doesn't need???
Why has it got serial ports, etc, in the boot files, if the machine doesn't have any???
I know a windows install has to work for any pc, so covers all bases, but there must be a script/batch file/etc that can be edited - in the same way your startup folder, what programs it runs, etc, can be changed to suit your requirements!

What I don't want to do, is waste hours/days/weeks messing about trying to fix drivers that will never work and are not needed, whilst not getting round to the critical one amongst these pages, pages & pages of info!!!!

 

[edwar]

Then you are infected with something that after you make the fix the system gets re-infected.
Or you OS is so corrupted, which means the hard drive is corrupted, that it can't load those drivers as Windows can't read them.
Or you have bad RAM.
As to some of the tings you listed above, like audio and video, are needed.

Have you done a complete wipe of the hard drive and reinstalled Windows?

Yes I know how to stop windows from loading stuff at startup. MSConfig or the services snapin. But some can't be disabled or the system won't work at all.

 

[Britton30]

Might give this a shot...
Some hardware tests to run.

Graphics card:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html#post866972


Hard drive(s):
Pick one for your HDD brand or use Seatools.
7 Free Hard Drive Testing Software Tools


RAM (memory):
This will require memtest on a bootable CD or USB stick.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html

 

[Indianatone]

I could be wrong but this could be the early signs of bad sectors on the hard drive. Test it with the trial of this Hard Disk Sentinel - HDD health and temperature monitoring
If the health reads much below 50% as this is your livelihood time for a replacement hard drive urgently.

 

[Bumpkin]

Try running SFC http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

Run it three times, booting between each run.

 

[Keith2468]

Probably the original poster has gotten his solution or given up. But having just gone through this myself, I want to post a reply just in case someone has this problem again in future.

So you get this c:\windows\nbtlog.txt file by repeatedly pressing F8 while booting and then selecting to produce a boot log.

nbtlog.txt is concatenated each time a log is produced.

1. So the first thing to do is separate out the old junk by renaming the current nbtlog.txt already there. (For example, nbtlog_upto_2013-01-10.txt)

2. Re-boot to produce a fresh new log.

3. You'll probably see most of those "did not load driver" messages are gone. There should be just a few left, for hardware you don't have or duplicate load attempts where an earlier load succeeded.

4. IF you want to proceed to steps 5 & 6 it is a good idea to run a backup first. (At least create a Windows System Restore Point.)

5. Optional. Run Driversweeper, looking for drivers for stuff you know you don't have. (You have a laptop, so you won't have updated your video card or network card, but possibly you'll find Dell installed extra drivers.)

6. Optional. Run CCleaner to clean up your registry.

7. Rename the current nbtlog.txt again.

8. Reboot with boot logging enabled and check your new nbtlog.txt.

9. You'll probably see most of those "did not load driver" messages are gone. There should be just a few left, for hardware you don't have. You might also see them where the driver was loaded earlier. If it is just a few, don't worry about them. (I get this for vga.sys, NDProxy.SYS (4 times), srv.sys.)

10. If you did steps 5 & 6 and still have a lot of "did not load" messages, post each one in a reply here. What they are for and whether they were previously loaded is probably important to figuring out why they are there.


If you look through your old renamed nbtlog.txt you'll see the various windows versions/service packs and the time stamp before each concatenated log. A couple date to a month before I got my computer. The others, I suspect they have to do with updates to drivers, software installations, and old safe boots.

I have a Dell too (Dell XPS 9000 desktop aka Dell Studio 435T), and I too had a whack of those messages. Maybe doing boot-logging automatically during update re-boots is a Dell-specific default? I can see where it would be handy if something went wrong with an update, but it does mean a lot of junk builds up over time.

 

[AaronHazard]

OS Login Lag

I had this issue several times in the past on several machines. I agree with Mr ...Indain...'s Post and only have this to add..

If all above posts did not help, try this;
!!If there are high-winds, do not do this, wait until weather calms! (static can cause unseen damages)

• Go to a local mom & pop Electronics Store, or Radio Shack should suffice.
• Open your machine case, find the cables leading to your hard disk following from the main-board.
• Normally, there is a tag on each cable inside laptop computers. ID the type of cable and ask the clerk for a replacement or to test the cables to see if they just needed a tighter hug on the ports.

I have no idea why windows or Co-Linux wouldn't already have standards for detecting this issue but in each incident I had with OS login lags, the ratio, 'problem with cable' to 'virtual problem' is 4>5-1>5.

I am not sure if this extra bit helps however, on machines I had been asked to fix, Vista 32bit on Gateway & Dell systems were the only computers I encountered which had a malware problem that directly corrupted the login causing a lag, following as you stated, "rebooting several times might for a few moments circumvent."