Disk write caching is disabled

[Guest]

I'm trying to trace down why my boot time is so long (3-4 minutes). I used
Boot Vis (gives boot time as 189 secs, with about 90 secs of no activity
except for 2 cpu usages), and on the Disk I/O graph is the message "Warning:
Disk write caching is disabled." In the device manager for disk drive, the
properties radio button "Optimize for Performance" is filled, but the "Enable
write caching on the disk" check box won't stay checked; i.e., when I close
the window and then come back in, it's unchecked. And rebooting gives the
same warning message in boot vis. Is disk caching actually not enabled, or
am I just not understanding what's going on?

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Thomas]

Sounds like a Microsoft "feature", having a checkbox with silent
built-in intelligence ;-)

Anyway: Lacking disk-write-caching (sometimes also called write-behind
or lazy-write) should not be able to impede performance too much
(possibly perhaps except for heavy loaded servers).
Could it be that you have disabled virtual memory? i.e. verify that
your you have a pagefile (alias swapfile) and that it hasn't manually
been set too low. (To find out go into control panel -> [system]:
Advanced tab -> setting button for performance -> [Performance
settings]: Advanced tab -> change button for virtual memory)

 

[Guest]

Ah yes, the notorious built in intelligence phenomenon!
Well, pagefiles are set to default: left to windows to control, so I guess
they're ok, yes? Maybe it isn't the problem. Bootvis is showing a 31 second
driver delay that I don't understand. I'm going to post a new question about
it.
Thanks for your help.