Boot up slow

[Guest]

(I couldn't post because my pop ups were blocked. Finally I figured it out.
) So, When I try to boot up my computer it says "F2-setup F12-Boot Menu I
can't get into Boot Menu Then when I press F2 after a long time about 3
minutes it finally says on another screen "Secondary drive O not found"
"Secondary drive 1 not found." It takes about two minutes to boot up after I
press F1 to continue. I can't find what's wrong. Thanks for reading this.

 

[Guest]

Are your hdds set to cable select? if not, set them that way and set the
drive with windows installed as the primary drive. Then enter the bios and
check the boot sequence. Set drive 0 as the first boot device, followed by
whatever you want. If windows doesn't find boot info on the first drive it
will check the other drives in the order u specified.

Don't know if that helps u at all, but input is input.

 

[Sparda]

(I couldn't post because my pop ups were blocked. Finally I
figured it out.
) So, When I try to boot up my computer it says "F2-setup
F12-Boot Menu I
can't get into Boot Menu Then when I press F2 after a long
time about 3
minutes it finally says on another screen "Secondary drive O
not found"
"Secondary drive 1 not found." It takes about two minutes to
boot up after I
press F1 to continue. I can't find what's wrong. Thanks for
reading this.

This is a problem wiht your drive configuration, nothing to do with
windows. At any point did you used to have a second hard drive
installed?

 

[Guest]

I will try thank you Brian. Sparda I haven't had a second hard drive
installed.
Thanks again

 

[Sparda]

I will try thank you Brian. Sparda I haven't had a second
hard drive
installed.
Thanks again

"I haven’t had a second hard drive installed."

In that case go into the BIOS and disable the slave drive interface on
the primary IDE channel, it is slow becasue it’s looking for a
drive, and there isnt one there, so it would be easyist just to
disable the slave interface on the primary channel (or IDE0:1).

 

[Guest]

I don't know how to do that could you please tell me how. Thank YOu.

 

[Guest]

Sparda how do you get into BIOS?
--
GrammyAndy

I will try thank you Brian. Sparda I haven't had a second hard drive
installed.
Thanks again

 

[Guest]

Brian or Sparda how do you enter BIOS, how do you change Hdds to cable? I
don't know? Sorry

 

[Sparda]

Sparda how do you get into BIOS?

In most cases you would press del or F2 (more or less) as soon as you
turn the computer on, it should tell you on the post screen, if all
you see when you turn the computer on is a picture of the builder of
your PC (eg Dell) the press tab as soon as this apears and it should
tell you which button to press, the BIOS is often refered to as the
Setup screen.

 

[Guest]

Boot is faster but I still have problems. I pressed DEL to find BIOS, thank
you. When the computer first comes on it has a black screen with the Dell on
it. It says "Dell Dimension 300 series. BIOS Revision A01
At top F2-setup F12-Boot Menu" i can get into boot menu now. It is really
slow. It takes 2 minutes to go to next screen or set up menu or boot menu.
Next screen is Microsoft Windows XP screen that is loading with the blue
loading bar. It takes 2 minutes to get to my desktop. I did what you told
me and like I said it is a little faster and doesn't hang up. But, is still
way too slow. Thank you for your help.

 

[Sparda]

Boot is faster but I still have problems. I pressed DEL to
find BIOS, thank
you. When the computer first comes on it has a black screen
with the Dell on
it. It says "Dell Dimension 300 series. BIOS Revision A01
At top F2-setup F12-Boot Menu" i can get into boot menu now.
It is really
slow. It takes 2 minutes to go to next screen or set up menu
or boot menu.
Next screen is Microsoft Windows XP screen that is loading
with the blue
loading bar. It takes 2 minutes to get to my desktop. I did
what you told
me and like I said it is a little faster and doesn't hang up.
But, is still
way too slow. Thank you for your help.

Perhaps it’s doing the same thing for the slave drive interface on
the secondary IDE channel, asuming you only have 1 CD/DVD drive
disable the slave drive internetfae on the secondary IDE channel
(IDE1:1)

 

[Guest]

I put the slave on off and the secondary slave on off. On the IDE it says
"IDE Device UDMA" then on or off. Which do I do? Or do I get into the IDE
some other way. I don't know what the IDE is. Sorry. Thanks for being
patient with me.

 

[Guest]

UDMA = ultra direct memory access. you want that enabled. otherwise it'll
run PIO, processor input/output, which is a lot slower.

IDE is the cable running from the hard drive (or cd/dvd roms) to the
motherboard (if your computer uses IDE cables). I don't recall what IDE
stands for though. Anyway, one end of the cable should be plugged into the
hard drive. The other end into the motherboard. There should also be a
connector inbetween where you would attach another hard drive (hdd) or cd/dvd
rom.

Entering the BIOS like Sparda had mentioned (F2) is where you'd change the
order of boot up devices. Looking at a Dell OptiPlex gx260 bios just go down
to where it says boot sequence and hit enter. Disable any options it has
that say something other than "Hard-Disk Drive X:" where X is the hdd
partition with the windows install. So that should be the only one with the
checkmark next to it. Exit and save those settings and see if it boots up
faster.

If it still fails to boot up in a decent amount of time i'd say it's a
driver issue. From what I've seen windows trying to establish network
connections can slow down the boot process. That and if you've recently
installed an app or hardware it could've installed a driver that might be
causing some conflicts. You may need to do a system restore back to a point
where you remember the boot up not taking as long.

Hope any of that helps.
God Bless

 

[Guest]

Which part? The system restore?

First, try booting up the computer in safe mode with networking and see
which driver it halts (takes the longest time to load and advance) on. If
you do that, report back which driver it is. Just write down the name and
report it here. We might be able to pinpoint a problem.

If you don't want to do that and just go with a system restore:
Go to your start menu.
Then to Help and Support.
There should be a link that says "Undo changes to your computer with System
Restore" click that and choose a date where you remember your computer not
have a long bootup.

Be forewarned, however, a system restore may not solve the problem, but it's
worth a shot.

 

[Guest]

I'll try that. A dell support guy told me to reset my cable connections and
I'll try that tomorrow. I'll try what you said, too. I couldn't change the
date in system restore. I couldn't get my calendar to go back to an eailier
month. I wanted to set it to May or June 1st. Can I do that? How? Thanks
for your help.