System takes 10+ minutes to boot up

[Thalin]

Hey all,

I am having a problem with my sister's machine, in that it hangs on the Pentium 4 logo for 10+ minutes, before finally booting up and working fine. Sometimes, it goes past the logo quickly, but then starts to boot up with the message 'disk boot failure, please insert system disk...', and I have to restart it otherwise it just stays on this message.

As far as I know this started after I transferred a load of files onto her machine when I was reformatting mine, then I restarted the get the network back after installing Windows again on my machine, then it started with the hanging on startup. I deleted these files but it hasn't changed anything.

Does anyone have any advice? I have run the disk check tool that checks the disk during startup, and everything in the system itself looks good, no loose wires etc.

 

[raybay]

10 minutes is a very long time, obviously, and is a sign that you have significant problems with perhaps more in the offing.
What you report is indicative of need for a reformat and reinstal...
I would save all data, and fix it now. Corrupted files may have occurred when you added all those files and folders.
Before I did the reformat, I would download and run the hard drive manufacturer's drive testing software... just to rule out a problem there... then run the free memory test Memtest86 from www.memtest.org.

 

[DelJo63]

Just for fun, pull the Ethernet cable out of the machine and then reboot.
Bet it will be much quicker.

edit:
On some XP Pro installations, when connected to a network (peer-peer in this case),
the computer boot time is over 1:40. The system seems to freeze after logging in and
the desktop may not appear or will freeze for a minute. As timed with the utility,
Bootvis.exe, the problem was with the driver mrxsmb.dll, adding over 67 seconds
to the boot time. Turning off and restoring file and printer sharing eliminated
65 seconds from the boot time.

* Alt-click (or right-click) on Network Places > Properties.
* Alt-click on Ethernet Adapter connection > Properties.
* Un-check "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks" > OK.
* Reboot.
* If you need file or printer sharing, repeat the above, re-check the box and re-boot again.

 

[Tedster]

your hard drive registry is probably corrupted. run chkdsk in windows and crap cleaner registry repair.

 

[Thalin]

I have tried without ethernet, and also ran CHKDSK, but to no avail.

 

[HSC]

Open device manager, expand the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controlers" section, double click on the "Primary IDE Channel", then on the "Advanced Tab" check the "Transfer Mode" if it is showing "PIO Mode only" that is your problem, try changing it to "DMA if available" by using the pull down option, then go back to the "Primary IDE Channel" heading right click it and select Scan for hardware changes from the menu and reboot check your boot-up time

Cheers HSC

 

[vegasgmc]

Ive had that several times and it was caused by a bad hard drive.

 

[fludlite]

AVG antivurus

I recently detected a program that ran at startup that was called AVGAMSVR.exe I put 2+2 together and figured when I downloaded
AVG FREE antivirus I must have to give up something? What?
I believe that this program hooks you into a gaming network where your PC is accessible by others for CPU usage. The program was running at a higher
priority than most thus slowing down YOUR functionality. I have no evidence yet but my PC runs better, and boots and logs off faster now that I disabled it.
I use a program called PM to see whats running at all times and a program called startup that tells me what programs automatically run at startup.
Its an eye opening experience.
As to suggestions made so far. I think that those of us that install free software have to recognize that we are going to be taken advantage of and that we must either suffer the consequences or delete installed programs that slow us down.

 

[DelJo63]

I recently detected a program that ran at startup that was called AVGAMSVR.exe I put 2+2 together and figured when I downloaded
AVG FREE antivirus I must have to give up something? What?

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