startup pausees for ages at "applying computer settings"

[Guest]

Hi! I've had Windows 2000 Professional installed on this machine for years
with no problems, then had my (80GB) hard drive die on me and lost
everything. I've replaced it with a new 120GB drive, formatted it as one
FAT32 partition and reinstalled Win2k. As far as I can tell, it is working
perfectly apart from the fact that on startup it pauses at the "applying
computer settings" stage for about 75 seconds. My guess would be that it's
supposed to take about 15s, but is getting a 60s timeout on something - but
even if this is true, I have no idea what it could be, or how to fix.

I am pretty sure that it is also pausing longer than expected (by perhaps
10s) at the very end of the previous loading screen (the screen with the
white background and the Win2000 logo): when the progress bar reaches the
end, it pauses for longer than it used to, although the blue activity bar
above it continues to cycle normally.

I have installed SP4 and other miscellaneous updates - no effect. Despite
looking extensively online and through the Microsoft KB articles, I can't
find anything of relevance. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Nic

 

[Dodo]

is working perfectly apart from the fact that on startup it pauses at
the "applying computer settings" stage for about 75 seconds. My guess
would be that it's supposed to take about 15s, but is getting a 60s
timeout on something - but even if this is true, I have no idea what
it could be, or how to fix.

Google for a util to optimize start-up!

 

[DL]

'lost everything'
did you reinstall your mobo chipset drivers, and other hw drivers from manu
sites, NOT winupdate?

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the replies!

Re optimising startup: I had assumed, this being a fresh installtion of
Windows on a newly formatted drive, that little or no optimising would be
needed - certainly I have never had problems like this before when installing
Windows. Thanks for the idea, though!

Re hardware drivers: good point, I forgot the mainboard drivers (although I
had installed the rest properly). However, when I found the appropriate
driver (I'm *sure* it was the right one), installed it and rebooted, Windows
BSOD'd me, with "INNACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE". I've tried to fix it, but can't,
so am now reinstalling Windows on that machine again...

Assuming I end up in the same position as before, which seems likely as it's
happened twice now, it would help if anyone could tell me (or link me to
information about) what the computer is trying to do when it displays
"Applying computer settings...". Is there anything during that process which
has a 60s timeout in the event of a problem?

Many thanks,
Nic

 

[Sparda]

'lost everything'
did you reinstall your mobo chipset drivers, and other hw
drivers from manu
sites, NOT winupdate?


machine for
years
something -
but

If you open the group policy editor (run gpedit.msc) then navigat to
Computer Config > Admin Temp > System, then find the entrie called
"Verbose vs normal status messages" and set that to enable, now when
windows loads and you logon it will give you more detailed information
about what windows is doing.