8 hour boot up

[Human Resources]

Heres one to tease your brain. My father in laws computer takes approx 8
hours to boot up in normal mode. It start goes through bios and then starts
to load windowsxp. the light on the keyboard num lock flashes and then goes
black. if we leave it alone within 8 hours it will boot up. It is a 1.1
amd proc 512 ram and 80 gig hard drive. If i choose to go in safe mode
takes bout a min to load up. Once it is running no problems. Just when i
reboot does it give me probs. If i boot with the bare min drivers,(no
win.ini..etc) same time limit. If i choose diag start up it does the same
thing. Nothing funny in the start up in msconfig. Nothing in the startup
file. THe last scan i did showed no viruses. ANy direction....besides
reformat..lol.....will be appriciated !!

THanks
Todd

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Heres one to tease your brain. My father in laws computer takes
approx 8 hours to boot up in normal mode. It start goes through bios
and then starts to load windowsxp. the light on the keyboard num
lock flashes and then goes black. if we leave it alone within 8
hours it will boot up. It is a 1.1 amd proc 512 ram and 80 gig hard
drive. If i choose to go in safe mode takes bout a min to load up.
Once it is running no problems. Just when i reboot does it give me
probs. If i boot with the bare min drivers,(no win.ini..etc) same
time limit. If i choose diag start up it does the same thing.
Nothing funny in the start up in msconfig. Nothing in the startup
file. THe last scan i did showed no viruses. ANy
direction....besides reformat..lol.....will be appriciated !!

You mentioned drivers, but you never said you had gotten the latest from
each of the respective hardware manufacturer's web sites..

Also, make sure the cache is turned on in the BIOS.

 

[WinGuy]

Heres one to tease your brain. My father in laws computer takes approx 8
hours to boot up in normal mode. It start goes through bios and then starts
to load windowsxp. the light on the keyboard num lock flashes and then goes
black. if we leave it alone within 8 hours it will boot up. It is a 1.1
amd proc 512 ram and 80 gig hard drive. If i choose to go in safe mode
takes bout a min to load up. Once it is running no problems. Just when i
reboot does it give me probs. If i boot with the bare min drivers,(no
win.ini..etc) same time limit. If i choose diag start up it does the same
thing. Nothing funny in the start up in msconfig. Nothing in the startup
file. THe last scan i did showed no viruses. ANy direction....besides
reformat..lol.....will be appriciated !!

THanks
Todd

Well, that's a good one! What do you mean by same time limit -- 8 hours or 1
minute? Kinda smells like a device driver problem to me.

I assume you are stuck for 8 hours (!) at the splash screen before the login
screen or desktop shows up? If so, what happens or what do you see if you
press the ESC key just one time during that delay time?

Does Event Viewer indicate anything unusual, once you can get to it after
it's booted 8 hours later?

Try disabling all your network adpater drivers in Device Manager. If that
helps, make a restore point and then delete the network adapters in Device
Manager and let them get reinstalled at next boot. If the problem then shows
up again after it had gone away when you disabled things then try installing
updated drivers for the network adapters.

 

[Human Resources]

What do you mean by same time limit -- 8 hours or 1

minute?

Sorry I should have stated that..its 8 hours at the splash screen.

I assume you are stuck for 8 hours (!) at the splash screen before the login
screen or desktop shows up? If so, what happens or what do you see if you
press the ESC key just one time during that delay time?

If i hit esc or any key it does nothing...the little blue bar keeps
scrolling and then stops and rolling.....

Does Event Viewer indicate anything unusual, once you can get to it after
it's booted 8 hours later?

Everyting looks the same...no extra processes running

 

[anon]

Have you checked for spyware/malware?
Just a thought.

 

[Pastor Frank]

If the cache is turned off some place, booting can take a very long time
indeed.

 

[Human Resources]

Ok guys thanks to all for the attempted helps but we were all wrong. After
a deep investigation into the computer i found another installation of
windows xp on the second hard drive. apparently my father in law had a new
hd placed in the puter and the other wasnt wiped. I deleted the windows
folder on the second drive and poof the computer started in less than 2 min
from pressing of the power button....sometimes the obvious is not so
Obvious!!! and to think i spent 2 weeks fighting with this!

Thanks again for all the help!!!

Todd

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Ok guys thanks to all for the attempted helps but we were all wrong.
After a deep investigation into the computer i found another
installation of windows xp on the second hard drive. apparently my
father in law had a new hd placed in the puter and the other wasnt
wiped. I deleted the windows folder on the second drive and poof the
computer started in less than 2 min from pressing of the power
button....sometimes the obvious is not so Obvious!!! and to think i
spent 2 weeks fighting with this!

hahah
Well, I guess it would be difficult to predict another hard drive was
installed and no one mentioned it. =)