slow startup

[Bill W]

I use an upgraded XP from WIN98SE, reboot, startup takes 6 minutes to
complete, far too slow.

I have talked to MSFT reps, not solved yet.

Just prior to the splash screen is a black screen with black and white
progress bar at bottom. The startup process takes most of the time here.

WE have disabled most of drivers and see what happened, no change.

They seem to think it is a hardware issue or corrupted driver issue, not
sure.

Does anyone have some history with this type of problem?

tks all

bw

 

[Guest]

I have this problem too, and I was hoping someone could tell me why as well.
I don't think it takes 6 minutes, but I spend forever looking at the blue
progress bar. I also tried all the things that you did with no sucess. I
even backed up all my necessary files and reinstalled Windows XP, that didn't
help. My friend has the exact same computer setup as me (we build them
together, his is just a diferent color) and his boots up within a minute, we
counted and the progress bar goes by 4 times before the logon screen appears.
We stoped counting mine at 40.

Does anyone know what is going on with Windows XP that can fix this?

your help is appreciated
~Chuck

 

[Bill W]

I have this problem too, and I was hoping someone could tell me why as well.
I don't think it takes 6 minutes, but I spend forever looking at the blue
progress bar. I also tried all the things that you did with no sucess. I
even backed up all my necessary files and reinstalled Windows XP, that didn't
help. My friend has the exact same computer setup as me (we build them
together, his is just a diferent color) and his boots up within a minute, we
counted and the progress bar goes by 4 times before the logon screen appears.
We stoped counting mine at 40.

Does anyone know what is going on with Windows XP that can fix this?

your help is appreciated
~Chuck

Hi Chuck, is your's an upgrade edition or full install, I have a AMD
Athlon processor, apparently a generic HD, my PC was built locally also.

Keep n touch Chuck

bw

 

[Dennis Lazo]

hi guys,

i am sure that a home built pc has nothing to do with the bootup time. mine
is home built as well and i can boot up in a minute or so.

four things that we need to consider here are the processors, the hard drive
speed, memory, and the number of applications starting at startup. if any of
the three are really slow, it can create a bottleneck which basically can
slow things down. and if you have so many applications starting at startup,
then that could add to the problem as well.

however, as bill has stated, his friend's pc is the same as his, so it is
likely a hardware related symptom.

anyways, you can try clearing the prefetch folder. this folder has
information about application startup. however, after years of use, too many
info get stuck here...so it becomes some form of a prob.

you can go to windows\prefetch folder and delete the prefetch files there.
most likely, all the files would be .pf, and one .ini

when you start windows up, you should experience fast bootup, but the
applications that load at startup would be a bit slower. this is normal as
windows still doesn't know which applications start at startup and can't
load them yet during bootup. things would be normal after three to five
reboots.

i hope this help.
--
Regards,
Dennis Lazo

the email address from where this message has been sent from is unmonitored.
e-mails may be sent at http://dennislazo.com/email/.
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rights.

 

[Peter Foldes]

Have you scanned for malware or spyware yet?

 

[T. Waters]

What happens booting into Safe Mode?

 

[R. McCarty]

If the XP System Partition in FAT32, you may have some disk issues,
such as Partition table miss-matches, etc. If your data is backed up,
you might want to consider converting the drive to NTFS. If you have
PQMagic (DOS Boot Diskettes), you can run the "Check for Errors"
to see if this partition has issue(s).

 

[Bill W]

hi guys,

i am sure that a home built pc has nothing to do with the bootup time. mine
is home built as well and i can boot up in a minute or so.

four things that we need to consider here are the processors, the hard drive
speed, memory, and the number of applications starting at startup. if any of
the three are really slow, it can create a bottleneck which basically can
slow things down. and if you have so many applications starting at startup,
then that could add to the problem as well.

however, as bill has stated, his friend's pc is the same as his, so it is
likely a hardware related symptom.

anyways, you can try clearing the prefetch folder. this folder has
information about application startup. however, after years of use, too many
info get stuck here...so it becomes some form of a prob.

you can go to windows\prefetch folder and delete the prefetch files there.
most likely, all the files would be .pf, and one .ini

when you start windows up, you should experience fast bootup, but the
applications that load at startup would be a bit slower. this is normal as
windows still doesn't know which applications start at startup and can't
load them yet during bootup. things would be normal after three to five
reboots.

i hope this help.

I have circa 60 .pf files there, should I delete them all. All are from
a couple of days ago from the install.

tks

bw

 

[Bill W]

Have you scanned for malware or spyware yet?

Yes I have, I used adaware.

bw

 

[Bill W]

What happens booting into Safe Mode?

haven't tried, MSFT thot it wouldn't help me.

bw

 

[Bill W]

If the XP System Partition in FAT32, you may have some disk issues,
such as Partition table miss-matches, etc. If your data is backed up,
you might want to consider converting the drive to NTFS. If you have
PQMagic (DOS Boot Diskettes), you can run the "Check for Errors"
to see if this partition has issue(s).

I use NTFS already.

bw