T
tedjallen
I have a Dell Dimension 8200 system with two 160GB internal drives. The
first contains a Dell diagnostic partition (10GB), a Win XP Home Ed.
partition (40GB), a Win XP Pro partition (40GB), and a non-primary general
data partition (70GB). The second drive is a single partition for archiving
Ghost images of the partitions on the primary drive.
The two Windows primary boot partitions know nothing about each other and I
switch between boot partitions via Computer Management->Disk Management and
then select the active partition prior to restarting. I also have a Win 98
Startup disk I can boot from to select the active partition in the event I
have to restore a partition that was not the active partition at the time it
was archived.
For the last 3 weeks I have been experiencing very long delays (sometimes
5-10 minutes) during boot where the screen stays black or after
right-clicking on the "My Computer" icon and selecting Manage->Disk
Management before the system will continue to boot or display partition
information respectively.
Sometimes the delay only occurs during the initial attempt to access "Disk
Management" and successive attempts during the same boot session will respond
reasonably (a couple of seconds or less). Another item to note is that this
delay also impacts access to the Disk Defragmenter as well.
Sometimes the Disk Management and Disk Defragmenter access attempts will
appear to hang completely and I will have to use Windows Task Manager to end
the "Not Responding" Computer Management session.
It may be worth noting that these delays do not appear to occur if I boot
either the Win XP Home or Win XP Pro partition in Safe Mode.
I have run updated virus pattern scans of all disks/partitions both in
normal and Safe-Mode boot conditions with nothing detected. I have done
likewise with 3 different spyware/malware tools with nothing suspicious
detected. The various event logs do not appear to show any errors related to
this behavior.
I have even restored the Win XP Home partition from a Ghost image that was 8
months old and the behavior was the same. I was then suspicious of Hardware
and ran diagnostics on the entire system and extensive tests on both hard
drives with no issues detected.
I then removed both internal hard drives, restored the Win XP Home partition
only to a completely different hard drive from the same 8-month-old Ghost
image I had restored to the original disk and I still have the same
delays/hangs.
I am at a loss as to what to try next. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
first contains a Dell diagnostic partition (10GB), a Win XP Home Ed.
partition (40GB), a Win XP Pro partition (40GB), and a non-primary general
data partition (70GB). The second drive is a single partition for archiving
Ghost images of the partitions on the primary drive.
The two Windows primary boot partitions know nothing about each other and I
switch between boot partitions via Computer Management->Disk Management and
then select the active partition prior to restarting. I also have a Win 98
Startup disk I can boot from to select the active partition in the event I
have to restore a partition that was not the active partition at the time it
was archived.
For the last 3 weeks I have been experiencing very long delays (sometimes
5-10 minutes) during boot where the screen stays black or after
right-clicking on the "My Computer" icon and selecting Manage->Disk
Management before the system will continue to boot or display partition
information respectively.
Sometimes the delay only occurs during the initial attempt to access "Disk
Management" and successive attempts during the same boot session will respond
reasonably (a couple of seconds or less). Another item to note is that this
delay also impacts access to the Disk Defragmenter as well.
Sometimes the Disk Management and Disk Defragmenter access attempts will
appear to hang completely and I will have to use Windows Task Manager to end
the "Not Responding" Computer Management session.
It may be worth noting that these delays do not appear to occur if I boot
either the Win XP Home or Win XP Pro partition in Safe Mode.
I have run updated virus pattern scans of all disks/partitions both in
normal and Safe-Mode boot conditions with nothing detected. I have done
likewise with 3 different spyware/malware tools with nothing suspicious
detected. The various event logs do not appear to show any errors related to
this behavior.
I have even restored the Win XP Home partition from a Ghost image that was 8
months old and the behavior was the same. I was then suspicious of Hardware
and ran diagnostics on the entire system and extensive tests on both hard
drives with no issues detected.
I then removed both internal hard drives, restored the Win XP Home partition
only to a completely different hard drive from the same 8-month-old Ghost
image I had restored to the original disk and I still have the same
delays/hangs.
I am at a loss as to what to try next. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.