Vista slow boot with USB external drive

[Guest]

Hi,
If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot Vista, it
takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea what's
going on with the drive during the startup process?

Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green progress
bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.

Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few minutes
after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk activity on
the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then starts
normally.

I've tried the following, to no avail:
- Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
- Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
- Disabling indexing on the drive
- Disabling readyboost and some other services
- Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format

When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that hidusb.sys
and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys files
aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.

I would appreciate any and all help.

 

[Bob]

Hi,
If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot Vista,
it
takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea
what's
going on with the drive during the startup process?

Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green
progress
bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.

Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few minutes
after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk activity
on
the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then starts
normally.

I've tried the following, to no avail:
- Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
- Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
- Disabling indexing on the drive
- Disabling readyboost and some other services
- Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format

When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that
hidusb.sys
and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys files
aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.

I would appreciate any and all help.

You can check to see what Vista reports as far as performance,
startup/shutdown issues:

Control Panel
System Maintenance
Performance Information and Tools
in the left pane, Advanced tools
cause of long startup/shutdown should be near the top under performance
issues.
Bob

 

[Guest]

You can check to see what Vista reports as far as performance,
startup/shutdown issues:

Control Panel
System Maintenance
Performance Information and Tools
in the left pane, Advanced tools
cause of long startup/shutdown should be near the top under performance
issues.
Bob

Here's the info from the Diagnostics-Performance error on startup (see
comments below):

BootTsVersion 2
BootStartTime 2007-03-23T04:21:38.700Z
BootEndTime 2007-03-23T04:25:11.006Z
SystemBootInstance 42
UserBootInstance 41
BootTime 127688
MainPathBootTime 86088
BootKernelInitTime 27
BootDriverInitTime 2428
BootDevicesInitTime 4690
BootPrefetchInitTime 28491
BootPrefetchBytes 331677696
BootAutoChkTime 0
BootSmssInitTime 63080
BootCriticalServicesInitTime 2460
BootUserProfileProcessingTime 781
BootMachineProfileProcessingTime 1078
BootExplorerInitTime 8442
BootNumStartupApps 3
BootPostBootTime 41600
BootIsRebootAfterInstall false
BootRootCauseStepImprovementBits 0
BootRootCauseGradualImprovementBits 0
BootRootCauseStepDegradationBits 0
BootRootCauseGradualDegradationBits 0
BootIsDegradation false
BootIsStepDegradation false
BootIsGradualDegradation false
BootImprovementDelta 0
BootDegradationDelta 0
BootIsRootCauseIdentified false


The entry " BootPrefetchBytes 331677696 " looks suspicious. Is SuperFetch
throwing prefetched data onto my USB hard drive? The ReadyBoot tab in the
drive properties states that my drive doesn't have the required performance
to speed up my system, and I have the box checked to "Stop retesting the
device when I plug it in". Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Steve Thackery]

See the thread below entitled 'Readyboost deletes cache on reboot'.

Some people's systems seem to delete the Readyboost cache, reformat the
drive, and rebuild the cache on every boot. It isn't happening on all.

This is presumably a bug.

Does anyone know how to report Vista bugs to MS??

Steve

 

[Guest]

See the thread below entitled 'Readyboost deletes cache on reboot'.

Some people's systems seem to delete the Readyboost cache, reformat the
drive, and rebuild the cache on every boot. It isn't happening on all.

This is presumably a bug.

Does anyone know how to report Vista bugs to MS??

Steve

Thanks for the information. Sounds like that could be the same thing I'm
seeing. It would seem like disabling the ReadyBoost service would have some
effect on that, but it doesn't seem to, at least on my setup. If the service
was disabled, would Vista still be creating/deleting the cache as described
in that thread?

BTW, another other odd thing is that within the last day or so, I don't hear
activity on the external disk during the 3 minute period of blank screen. I
used to. I scanned the disk for errors just in case and it came back as
being error-free.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Rock]

Hi,
If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot Vista,
it
takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea
what's
going on with the drive during the startup process?

Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green
progress
bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.

Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few minutes
after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk activity
on
the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then starts
normally.

I've tried the following, to no avail:
- Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
- Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
- Disabling indexing on the drive
- Disabling readyboost and some other services
- Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format

When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that
hidusb.sys
and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys files
aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.

I would appreciate any and all help.

It's a BIOS issue and depends on the external drive. I have that effect in
XP (in a dual boot with Vista though the effect was there before Vista was
installed), where one external drive causes a delay and two others don't.
None of the drives causes any delay in booting Vista.

 

[Guest]

It's a BIOS issue and depends on the external drive. I have that effect in
XP (in a dual boot with Vista though the effect was there before Vista was
installed), where one external drive causes a delay and two others don't.
None of the drives causes any delay in booting Vista.

Rock,
Thanks for the input.

Why would a BIOS-related issue behave differently in XP vs. Vista? I would
think that such a thing would be OS-independent. (Yours has the effect in XP
and not Vista, while mine shows the delay in Vista but not XP.)

My BIOS is the most recent release for my motherboard, and since my
motherboard is older, I don't expect that there will be any new BIOS releases
made. Is this the kind of thing I can ever expect a fix for in Vista?

Thanks,
Casey

 

[Rock]

Rock,
Thanks for the input.

Why would a BIOS-related issue behave differently in XP vs. Vista? I
would
think that such a thing would be OS-independent. (Yours has the effect in
XP
and not Vista, while mine shows the delay in Vista but not XP.)

My BIOS is the most recent release for my motherboard, and since my
motherboard is older, I don't expect that there will be any new BIOS
releases
made. Is this the kind of thing I can ever expect a fix for in Vista?

No, I wouldn't think so.

 

[Bill]

I am seeing the same slow boot problem as Casey. The machine is dual
boot with XP PRO and VISTA ULTIMATE. No problem on XP. With the WD
external drive plugged in during boot on VISTA, it takes ’forever’.

Machine is an HP1350N.

Update: Did some crude timings

XP boot with USB drive adds 5 seconds
VISTA boot with USB drive adds 34 seconds

Just so happens these times are also the same amount of time it takes
for each system to recognize the drive when plugged on a running
system

 

[Rock]

I am seeing the same slow boot problem as Casey. The machine is dual
boot with XP PRO and VISTA ULTIMATE. No problem on XP. With the WD
external drive plugged in during boot on VISTA, it takes 'forever'.

Machine is an HP1350N.

Update: Did some crude timings

XP boot with USB drive adds 5 seconds
VISTA boot with USB drive adds 34 seconds

Just so happens these times are also the same amount of time it takes
for each system to recognize the drive when plugged on a running
system.

:

Hi,
If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot
Vista,
it
takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea
what's
going on with the drive during the startup process?

Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green
progress
bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.

Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few
minutes
after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk
activity
on
the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then
starts
normally.

I've tried the following, to no avail:
- Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
- Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
- Disabling indexing on the drive
- Disabling readyboost and some other services
- Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format

When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that
hidusb.sys
and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys
files
aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.

I would appreciate any and all help.

It's a BIOS issue and depends on the external drive. I have that effect
in
XP (in a dual boot with Vista though the effect was there before Vista
was
installed), where one external drive causes a delay and two others don't.
None of the drives causes any delay in booting Vista.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]


Rock,
Thanks for the input.

Why would a BIOS-related issue behave differently in XP vs. Vista? I
would
think that such a thing would be OS-independent. (Yours has the effect in
XP
and not Vista, while mine shows the delay in Vista but not XP.)

My BIOS is the most recent release for my motherboard, and since my
motherboard is older, I don't expect that there will be any new BIOS
releases
made. Is this the kind of thing I can ever expect a fix for

in Vista?

No, I wouldn't think so.

In this system the delay only occurs in XP, and it's about the same as you
see, 30 seconds. Also of two USB drives only one delays the XP boot. It
doesn't matter what the BIOS settings are set to re legacy USB.

 

[Guest]

Brand new system with Ultimate. 4 minutes to reboot or shut down. Here are
some of the errors:

This application caused a delay in the system shutdown process:
File Name : mobsync.exe
Friendly Name : Microsoft Sync Center
Version : 6.0.6000.16386 (vista_rtm.061101-2205)
....
Background optimizations (prefetching) took longer to complete, resulting in
a performance degradation in the system start up process:
Name : BackgroundPrefetchTime
Total Time : 30742ms
Degradation Time : 742ms
....
Session manager initialization caused a slow down in the startup process:
Name : SMSSInit
Total Time : 11200ms
Degradation Time : 1200ms
Incident Time (UTC) : 5/10/2007 4:56:57 PM