External USB drives cause slow XP startup

[Dr. DOS]

It is taking up to three minutes to boot up in XP. This has
happened since I added two large capacity (500Gbyte)external
USB HDDs.

After the initial Windows splash screen and until the logon
icon appears, these two drives are accessed/read on a one at
a time sequence (based on seeing the drive lights flashing)
by what function??? As soon as the harddrive light for the
second USB drive stops flashing, the logon icon appears, and
the expected transition to the desktop happens.

I have disable anti-virus, which does not load or run. Also
disabled was spubot-teatimer. I can think of nothing else
besides windows itself that is searching these drives for
quick indexing or something of that sort.

No I do not have a trojan or bot on this machine.

How can I get XP to stop this boot-up accessing of these HDDs?

 

[Bill in Co.]

Well, the BIOS is always going to check them before bootup each time you
boot up. Is that what you're seeing?

How about leaving the externals turned off until you actually need them,
which I think is the normal usuage? I have an external HD and it is turned
OFF until I need to use it. Why would you do otherwise?

If you always want that HD available, why not add it internally as second
drive?

 

[R. McCarty]

Most BIOS provides for "Legacy" mode operation of USB ports.
If you disable that option in your BIOS, the drives will no longer
attempt to be mounted prior to XP fully loading.

 

[Twayne]

It is taking up to three minutes to boot up in XP. This has

happened since I added two large capacity (500Gbyte)external
USB HDDs.

After the initial Windows splash screen and until the logon
icon appears, these two drives are accessed/read on a one at
a time sequence (based on seeing the drive lights flashing)
by what function??? As soon as the harddrive light for the
second USB drive stops flashing, the logon icon appears, and
the expected transition to the desktop happens.

I have disable anti-virus, which does not load or run. Also
disabled was spubot-teatimer. I can think of nothing else
besides windows itself that is searching these drives for
quick indexing or something of that sort.

No I do not have a trojan or bot on this machine.

How can I get XP to stop this boot-up accessing of these HDDs?

XP Pro or Home?

Well first, 3 minutes isn't a significantly long time to boot XP.
Unless there are no other apps installed and the drives are empty, I
don't think I'd worry about it. If any of this is the case, then you
need to consider adding that infor and any other that may be relevant to
your situation and post back.

I assume you've tried restarting a couple times at least, to let the
system sort out the boot sequences and bring itself up to speed?

How much time ARE the disk drives adding to the boot time?
What was the original boot time?
What are the specs of the drives?
Does it go away if the drives are left turned off.
How are they powered? USB? Brick? Wall wart?
Are they connected to USB2.0 ports? Or 1.1?
Etc.; I think you can see where I'm going.

HTH

Twayne

 

[Twayne]

Well, the BIOS is always going to check them before bootup each time

you boot up. Is that what you're seeing?

How about leaving the externals turned off until you actually need
them, which I think is the normal usuage? I have an external HD and
it is turned OFF until I need to use it. Why would you do otherwise?

While I understand your point and where you're coming from, powering
down an external drive isn't always the best thing to do; there are
several instances where they are preferred powered on. One such would be
as follows:
I have mine connected most of the time. That's because incremental
backups plus once a month, full backups are run overnight for all 5
drives (only 2 physical drives). Additionally, any install triggers a
backup of the system drive, and adding over xxxMeg of data triggers that
particular drive to be backed up, and monitoring is constant.
While I'm at the machine, everything is on and running. Should I
leave the machine for more than a few minutes, I kill the modem. Then
shortly afterward the system goes into hibernation. The drive turns
off/on with computer boot/shut down, so hibernation turns off the ext
drive, too.
Actually, they aren't backups being created; they're actually images

If you always want that HD available, why not add it internally as
second drive?

One would be ill advised to purchase an ext drive unless there was a
substantial price advantage, and remove it from the case and install it
internally. The majorith of the time, when one wants an internal drive
.... they buy an internal drive. Before doing so though, one needs to be
sure the power connections are compatible re computer vs drive.
Your question begs the opposite question: What's wrong with running
an external drive all the time? In theory, very little. In my case the
ext drives run cooler than the internals; nothing but its support &
itself to generate heat, so it seems logical.

Regards,

Twayne

 

[Twayne]

It is taking up to three minutes to boot up in XP. This has

happened since I added two large capacity (500Gbyte)external
USB HDDs.

After the initial Windows splash screen and until the logon
icon appears, these two drives are accessed/read on a one at
a time sequence (based on seeing the drive lights flashing)
by what function??? As soon as the harddrive light for the
second USB drive stops flashing, the logon icon appears, and
the expected transition to the desktop happens.

I have disable anti-virus, which does not load or run. Also
disabled was spubot-teatimer. I can think of nothing else
besides windows itself that is searching these drives for
quick indexing or something of that sort.

No I do not have a trojan or bot on this machine.

How can I get XP to stop this boot-up accessing of these HDDs?

PS - in order to be able to use the drives, they must be inspected and
determined in order to add them to the correct parameters. Drive, type,
size, signature, etc.. That happens to the internals also. Every
connected device is queried and added to the lists.

Twayne

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was Friday, January 09, 2009 4:19:33 PM, and on a
whim, Twayne pounded out on the keyboard:

While I understand your point and where you're coming from, powering
down an external drive isn't always the best thing to do; there are
several instances where they are preferred powered on. One such would be
as follows:
I have mine connected most of the time. That's because incremental
backups plus once a month, full backups are run overnight for all 5
drives (only 2 physical drives). Additionally, any install triggers a
backup of the system drive, and adding over xxxMeg of data triggers that
particular drive to be backed up, and monitoring is constant.
While I'm at the machine, everything is on and running. Should I
leave the machine for more than a few minutes, I kill the modem. Then
shortly afterward the system goes into hibernation. The drive turns
off/on with computer boot/shut down, so hibernation turns off the ext
drive, too.
Actually, they aren't backups being created; they're actually images


One would be ill advised to purchase an ext drive unless there was a
substantial price advantage, and remove it from the case and install it
internally. The majorith of the time, when one wants an internal drive
... they buy an internal drive.

I'm sure that's what Bill meant. ;-)

Before doing so though, one needs to be

sure the power connections are compatible re computer vs drive.
Your question begs the opposite question: What's wrong with running
an external drive all the time? In theory, very little. In my case the
ext drives run cooler than the internals; nothing but its support &
itself to generate heat, so it seems logical.

Regards,

Twayne

Almost 100% of the external drives used by any workstations on networks
I admin, burn out when left on. These were all external cases without
fans, not a drive configured for constant use, like an attachable
network drive.

After seeing this happen over a couple dozen times, I always advise
those who use them to only plug them in when needed. I have 4 externals
myself and plug them in when it's time to have an external backup of my
drives. All of them get extremely warm within a short time. Most of my
backups are done within the 3 internal drives, keeping copies of
partitions of one drive backed up to another.

--
Terry R.

***Reply Note***
Anti-spam measures are included in my email address.
Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.

 

[Dr. DOS]

Well, the BIOS is always going to check them before bootup each time you
boot up. Is that what you're seeing?

How about leaving the externals turned off until you actually need them,
which I think is the normal usuage? I have an external HD and it is turned
OFF until I need to use it. Why would you do otherwise?

If you always want that HD available, why not add it internally as second
drive?

No, I don't think it is the BIOS. I see when the BIOS checks
them. The long accesses/delays happen after Windows starts.
These are small sized drives, USB powered, and have no power
switches. The drives hang on to a notebook computer, so not
possible to install them inside at any rate.
Thanks for your observations.

 

[Dr. DOS]

Most BIOS provides for "Legacy" mode operation of USB ports.
If you disable that option in your BIOS, the drives will no longer
attempt to be mounted prior to XP fully loading.

I will look at the BIOS and try the settings both ways to
experiment.
Thank you.

 

[Dr. DOS]

XP Pro or Home?

XP Pro SP3

Well first, 3 minutes isn't a significantly long time to boot XP.

It may not be significant for you, but three minutes is
significant to me.

Unless there are no other apps installed and the drives are empty, I
don't think I'd worry about it. If any of this is the case, then you
need to consider adding that infor and any other that may be relevant to
your situation and post back.

Before these two drives were hung on, boot time was less
than one minute

I assume you've tried restarting a couple times at least, to let the
system sort out the boot sequences and bring itself up to speed?

15 times in the course of experimenting. Several times with
the same settings to let things "sort out."

How much time ARE the disk drives adding to the boot time?

Each adds almost one minute.

What was the original boot time?

Approximately one minute or less.

What are the specs of the drives?

USB 2.0. 480Mb/s transfer rate. 500Gb capacity That is the
complete specification from Western Digital for its Passport
drives.

Does it go away if the drives are left turned off.

The question is inapplicable because the drives are
no-switch USB powered.

However, for a test I "stopped" and disconnected one of the
drives, and then reconnected it. When it was reconnected,
the same scan/access experience, lasting about one minute
took place.

How are they powered? USB? Brick? Wall wart?

Standard USB cable.

Are they connected to USB2.0 ports? Or 1.1?
2.0
Etc.; I think you can see where I'm going.

No I don't see where you are going. Do you have a suggestion?

 

[Dr. DOS]

PS - in order to be able to use the drives, they must be inspected and
determined in order to add them to the correct parameters. Drive, type,
size, signature, etc.. That happens to the internals also. Every
connected device is queried and added to the lists.

Twayne

Yes. Isn't that a BIOS function? Even if not, taking one
minute is excessive for this activity.

 

[Dr. DOS]

Most BIOS provides for "Legacy" mode operation of USB ports.
If you disable that option in your BIOS, the drives will no longer
attempt to be mounted prior to XP fully loading.

Changing legacy settings had no effect.

Western Digital tech supports informs me this is a function
of Windows XP which is scanning each drive as part of the
Windows start-up process to determine/recognize which
drivers to load. Since these are 500Gb drives, it takes that
long to scan. WDTS states there is nothing to adjust to
change this behavior. Windows7 anyone?

 

[Lil' Dave]

The only thing I see that doesn't corroborate with my observations is when
XP polls the drives. The logon is presented irregardless where it is in the
drive poll process. Its polling partitions, and DVD/CD media contents. Its
looking at the root of partitions for files and folders, not the entire
partition subfolder layout. In that case I"ve mentioned, a manual logon
requiring password entry is used. With no password and flyby logon, I see
drives and CD/DVD drives being polled after entry into the windows desktop,
indicated by lit leds on said onboard devices.

Since there is most likely not any system files on those removable drives,
disabling system restore seems appropriate, if you haven't already for those
removable drives.

The term "removable" indicates the purpose. Remove it either electrically
or physically when not intending to immediately use. Do not energize until
you're ready to immediately use. This is a data safety measure.