Slow booting XP, event ID 9, hardware problem? Please help.

[Anders]

My Windows XP SP2 system boots extremely slowly. In the event viewer there are two event ID 9: The device, \Device\Scsi\HPT3021, did not respond within the timeout period. The events occur booting in Safe Mode and after a fresh install of Windows XP (slipstream SP2). I’ll perhaps install a non SP2 Windows XP to rule out SP2 problems? I am finding this difficult to narrow down.

I guess the culprit will be one of three items:
Motherboard: ABit KD7
Hard Disk: Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 SATA
SATA Controller: Highpoint Rocket 1520 (non-RAID)
The hard disk and controller are relatively new.

I have tried:

• Removing all other devices
• The latest BIOS and drivers
• Moving the SATA controller into different PCI slots
• Swapping SATA ports on the card and a different cable
• Slowing down to ATA33 (see below)
• Hitachi Drive Fitness Tester (passed advanced test)
• HD Tune 2.51 (passed)

I used Hitachi’s feature tool to set the HDD mode down to ATA33. This did not help, boots much slower and now there are six event id 9 every boot. Even worse, even though the drive is detected by the SATA controller and my system boots, neither of Hitachi’s tools now detect the drive, so I am stuck at ATA33 I guess the problems are related.

[jamena]

just a wild stab in the dark...

HPT ... highpoint?
Sounds like you need to install some (other?) drivers for the controller card. Bear in mind that mixing old with new hardware can result in irresolvable problems/conflicts. Tried an IDE drive? ...guessing this motherboard is PATA only without the highpoint card?

edit: alternatively - can you boot up off a knoppix live CD, with/without the sata controller/drive

[Anders]

Hi jamena, I have been assuming HPT = highpoint. It has been in the past when I had a KR7A-RAID with a built in Highpoint IDE RAID controller. I don’t have any other SCSI adapters. Yes motherboard is PATA only. I think all my old PATA drives died, but it might be worth a try. Although this wouldn’t completely rule out motherboard problems as it could be PCI related.

I installed the latest drivers (off a floppy) for the controller card during the Windows XP install.

Thanks for the Knoppix tip, I will download and hopefully try this evening.