XP boot process

[Mike]

Hi,

A few days ago my HDD crashed. Today I managed to rescue the data and I
partitioned the entire drive. XP is booting twice as fast.
The progress bar with those iiiiiii is gone in a flash.(I dont know how it's
called)

I suspect it has to do with fragmentation of certain areas on the HDD.
I know there is a program called bootvis, but I read so many completely
different reviews ..

Is there somebody who knows where I can find more information about the boot
process and disk fragmentation?


Regards,

Mike.

 

[Ron Martell]

Hi,

A few days ago my HDD crashed. Today I managed to rescue the data and I
partitioned the entire drive. XP is booting twice as fast.
The progress bar with those iiiiiii is gone in a flash.(I dont know how it's
called)

I suspect it has to do with fragmentation of certain areas on the HDD.
I know there is a program called bootvis, but I read so many completely
different reviews ..

Is there somebody who knows where I can find more information about the boot
process and disk fragmentation?

While fragmentation could have been the cause of your slower booting,
it would have had to be pretty severe in order to affect the boot time
as you described. Operating system files tend to be contiguous when
installed and it is difficult, although not impossible, for them to
become fragmented after being installed unless the files have been
updated and the updates increased the size of the file(s).

Did you reinstall *all* of your application programs, especially the
ones that load at startup? Did you install updated hardware drivers,
ones that were not installed previously, as part of the reinstall?
When you repartitioned the drive did you change from FAT32 to NTFS?

All of these could be at least partially responsible for your faster
startup times.

But the bottom line is that it is working better and in these
circumstances the golden rule of repairmen applies" "If it ain't
broke don't fix it".

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi Mike,

Boot process:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1968054,00.asp
http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/unknownreference/articles/12284.aspx

--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
http://aumha.org/

 

[Guest]

Hi, I have been having multiple "NEW COMPUTER" problems but managed to copy
the OLD C: drive to my new machine (old drive in an external housing).
However, now my OLD machine doesn't complete the boot process. After the
normal Windows logo and scrolling bars it simply goes to a blank screen, just
black. It seems to be waiting for, or looking for, something. This is where
the center screen cursor normally appears.
During statrup the customary screens show up, including a "didn't shut down
correctly the last time" select list, but nothing works, not even "SAFE" mode.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Mike]

While fragmentation could have been the cause of your slower booting,
it would have had to be pretty severe in order to affect the boot time
as you described. Operating system files tend to be contiguous when
installed and it is difficult, although not impossible, for them to
become fragmented after being installed unless the files have been
updated and the updates increased the size of the file(s).

Did you reinstall *all* of your application programs, especially the
ones that load at startup? Did you install updated hardware drivers,
ones that were not installed previously, as part of the reinstall?
When you repartitioned the drive did you change from FAT32 to NTFS?

All of these could be at least partially responsible for your faster
startup times.

But the bottom line is that it is working better and in these
circumstances the golden rule of repairmen applies" "If it ain't
broke don't fix it".

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

Hi Ron,

I deleted all partitions.
Next I ran the setup with my XP SP2 CD.
I created only a primairy partittion (20 GB) to install XP.
On second reboot in setup I booted in VGA mode.
Installed the audio and graphic drivers, etc.

I created the other partitions with Disk Managment.
XP is booting much faster than before, when I did a clean install without
free space on the HDD.

Maybe it is hardware related?

Regards,

Mike.

 

[Mike]

Hi Curt,

I Bookmarked the dotnetjunkies page..

Regards,

Mike.