Windows XP hangs at bootup

[JimShady23]

Hey whats up guys, I got a slight problem that i need some help with. See if you can come up with any suggestions.

When i boot up and it gets to where the initial boot screen should be for windows it stays black for a good 20 sec or more then the intial screen pops up and then boots windows normally. I have tired a variety of things including a reinstall, memory change, removed the sound card and have just changed my cpu with no results,

Its possibly a hard drive issue ? But i havent had a problem with my main RAID set. It runs flawlessly in windows.

I do have 3 other hard drives installed but disconnected them with no result

The only other option is my pci-x video card. But i dont have another sitting around to swap.

Just dont make any scense that everything works so nicley once it boots that it hangs for such a long time at startup.

If anyone can come up with any suggestions on what could be causing this would be great. Thanks Guys

System Specs: ( Nothing is overclocked )

Abit AN8 Ultra
AMD 4200 X2
512 x 4 OCZ Gold PC 3700 Rev 3
XFX 7600 GT
Audigy 2
2x 80gb SATAII Seagates (RAID O) ( Boot )
2x 250gb SATA Seagates (RAID 0)
1x 160 gb Seagate IDE
2x CD/DVD Writer/Readers
3 1/2 Floppy

 

[fastco]

Give this a shot:

Go to Start->Run... and type or paste "Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks".
This will start a built in optimization routine that runs in the System Idle Process
and shows up as "rundll32.exe" in task manager. It normally runs automatically every 3 days. It will run for 15 mins to half an hour, so don't try to do anything too intensive while its running. If you get sick of it running, you should probably
log off or restart to be safe, rather than killing the process.

Also download CCleaner and run the registry tool and fix all issues.

 

[JimShady23]

Ok

Am giving it a shot as we speak, but is it a invisible process ? cant tell if it is doing anything

 

[JimShady23]

Plus

I its doing it right before the "Windows XP black bacground with the little time bar screen" you know that very first screen you see see after your system posts and it brings you to XP ?

Here is how it started I guess.....About 2 weeks ago i decided to reinstall windows as part as my periodic machine maintence.....Well after doing that this is when this problem began. I figured it was a bad install so i decided to reinstall again when i had time, that time was last night and it has the same problem. It did right away, after the initial setup where you load your raid drivers and all....The first time you see the initial boot screen basically...

 

[blue_dragon]

nvidia

check your chipset drivers..i installed the nvidia ata controller..and my pc would get to the loading xp screen and hang for like 2 mins and continue afterwards

 

[JimShady23]

SATA or PATA ?

That would make scence if it was the SATA RAID driver. It cant be the ide controller that you install with the NF4 chipset driver because it does this hang crap well before you even get around to doing that. i.e. it hangs even when windows first loads....meaning after the initail boot and coping of files off the xp disk where you partition your drives ect ect....Right before it loads windows to install the rest of the setup.....So yeah thats when the SATA RAID driver are installed anyways... So yeah im gonna back date these drivers a bit...I'll keep ya posted thanks for the idea man

 

[JimShady23]

Found it !!!

Well thanks for the help guys, but i found the culprit....Was my 5 in 1 card reader I have in my front 3 1/2 bay. Appears that Windows may be looking for some type of boot agent or such from the drive, or is having problems with the drive on some lever. But here is the kicker. I pop in my SD media card and Windows boots as normal. Any reason why you guys think this is happening ? Weird