XP Boot and Disk Checking

[Giraffe]

Recently I enlarged the partitions on my HDD; it's 80GB and I'd not used more than half of it in the last 4 years (don't laugh!).
Now that the whole disk is in use the boot time has increased by about 10s, which is a bit annoying - what would happen with a much bigger disk? It could take twice as long to boot!

The delay is up to "Windows has finished checking the disk"; thereafter it's normal.
Is this check useful and, if not, is there a way of stopping it?

The Boot.ini is:

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /noexecute=alwaysoff /usepmtimer /SOS


Thanks.

[Splash]

Why are you using both

/noexecute=optin
/noexecute=alwaysoff

they seem to contradict one another. Do you want DEP on or not?

[Giraffe]

Well, the Boot.ini is, apart from /SOS, unedited by me, so I have no idea what those two entries mean!
Could you explain, please?

[vinnyT]

Well, the Boot.ini is, apart from /SOS, unedited by me, so I have no idea what those two entries mean!
Could you explain, please?

This should help explain http://www.maxi-pedia.com/noexecute%...optin%2Boptout

[Giraffe]

Well, after some more research (starting with the link above), I've deleted " /noexecute=alwaysoff" as it is in direct conflict with " /noexecute=optin". This is OK for what it is, i.e. removing a redundant entry, but I still wonder about boot time with a big disk if going from about 40GB to 80GB adds 10s.

[jim]

It's ages since I've booted XP. Does "Windows has finished checking the disk" mean a disk check?!

[GoNz0]

grab a demo of 00 defrag and run a boot time defrag followed by a full in windows defrag.

[Giraffe]

I defrag about once a week and occasionally do a boot defrag. That's not the issue here: windows checking 80GB instead of 40GB has added 10s to boot time, so I wondered what happened with, say, a 1TB disk.

[jim]

Why on earth is it checking the disk though?

Surely that isn't normal? I never remember XP doing that at boot :/

[GoNz0]

only if it detects a fault, maybe run a disk diagnostic app from the makers support site ?

[jim]

That's what I'm thinking. If it's detecting a fault at boot each time, no wonder it's taking so much longer to run.

Diagnostic app + hdtune run would be a good move

[Giraffe]

Well, it was booting to useability (firewall, AV and a few utilities) in about 55 - 60s; now it's 10s longer, so it's not taking a long time as such.
The checking process notifies me of finishing at 35s after switch on so it can't be doing all that much.