XP Boot times: RESULT!

[Harkin]

how come that sata hd need drivers loaded ([f6]) so that the os can recognise the sata drives but sata cd/dvd doesn't?? Does the xp install see the cd

No you dont need the drivers for Sata, you only need them to Raid Hardrives

[moogle]

sadly os & apps until they get put onto usb flash drives. Plus games tend to get pretty narcky if u don't have the original disc.

But other than that you've a point

vista apparently, only time i plugged the dvd drive in. and also to watch the matrix
so badass, what do i do with this bootvis?

[Supershanks]

I'd seen problems a while back , this is typical, which prompted my question:-
Uhg! I just got the 716SA (SATA) Internal writer....no Detection in XP!?!?!
I can assume things have improved ??

[Zak33]

Bloody hell mate, ive been preaching this one for ages

IDE optical drives are really slow when initialising with windows. Strangely, other OS's don't suffer the same problem - or at least have a better way around it.

ahhhhh /nods knowledgably
I must admit to being blind to advice sometimes...gotta burn myself before I see the red hot steel.

[[GSV]Trig]

Was that with or wihout a disk in the drive, you might find that Windows is trying to access it and if the drives empty it might be hitting some sort of timeout...

[Ciber]

Sorry to revive a 3 month old thread, but it seems better than starting a new one and does follow on.

Having read this I've since removed my last two IDE devices, both optical drives that looked a bit redundant since I have a SATA DVD-RW. I was glad to remove the bulky round IDE cables as well, airflow must be better for it, even if I had tidied them away as much as I could. Then I put old bits on Ebay, good riddance to them! Felt like a little victory, like when I threw away my floppy drive after it ruined an umpteenth disk and disabled the 'legacy floppy device' in the BIOS.

So, after disabling the IDE channels in the BIOS everything works fine and boot times do seem to be very much reduced, very nice. The bios screen seems to dissapear quicker and the progress bar screen is hardly seen at all now, like others have reported, the thing I seem to see longest now is the blank screen just before the welcome screen. All good stuff, thanks Zak33.

I'm just left with one thing I'm not sure about. In the device manger there are still the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE controller device and two IDE channel devices like this:


Now, I really don't think they should still be there, as my PC doesn't have any IDE channels or devices any more. I've uninstalled the nvidia nforce driver and reinstalled the latest version, but it's still there.

So, the question is: should it be left alone, disabled or uninstalled from the device manger?

[this_is_gav]

IDE can refer to SATA too. It's SATA vs PATA that's the being discussed, technically. Many refer to PATA as IDE, but that's not strictly correct.

Still, it does look like that one is a PATA controller, just going by the nV SATA controllers above it, and the fact that it mentions dual-channel, something SATA can't be. You could try disabling it if you like, and see it it lets you. If it doesn't it'll be the system drive and you'll have to leave it. Still, I'd do a backup first if you can, just in case I nuke your system (I doubt it would even be possible to allow you to do so, but I'm not gonna be held responsible if it did!).

[moogle]

Sorry to revive a 3 month old thread, but it seems better than starting a new one and does follow on.

exactly, thats good posting there

[Craig321]

Hi guys,

A few weeks ago I was whining on about XP boot times getting slower and slower as the install got older.

Well, today I'm installing XP on two WD drives (see other thread about HDD testing) and I've just had a EUREKA moment.

I am lucky enough to have recently purchased a SATA optical drive. I installed it months ago and it's very lovely.

Because I have lots ofspace in my aged tower case, I am still using my DVD/CD-R/CDRW combo drive too.

With fresh installs of XP and both optical drives connected I'm getting boot times of 46 and 45 seconds and 7 turns of the blue bar on the XP boot screen. Not bad.

But I unplugged all the drives to see the difference, leaving just the new WD drive.

under 1/2 a blue bar movement and a boot time of 35 seconds!

I plugged in 2 then 3 then 4 SATA drives and the boot times stay under 40 seconds AND less than 2 turns of the blue bar.

Plug in the EIDE drive......back to 47 seconds and 7 turns of the wheel.

What I'm saying is, with my Asus nForce4 mobo (A8N-E) EIDE slows it down, big time

Hope someone finds it useful as SATA opticals are under £20

My old PC did the same. Second drive in (IDE) = slow boot. Second drive out = faster boot

[Ciber]

IDE can refer to SATA too. It's SATA vs PATA that's the being discussed, technically. Many refer to PATA as IDE, but that's not strictly correct.

Still, it does look like that one is a PATA controller, just going by the nV SATA controllers above it, and the fact that it mentions dual-channel, something SATA can't be. You could try disabling it if you like, and see it it lets you. If it doesn't it'll be the system drive and you'll have to leave it. Still, I'd do a backup first if you can, just in case I nuke your system (I doubt it would even be possible to allow you to do so, but I'm not gonna be held responsible if it did!).

Thanks, I won't hold you responsible of course.

I've disabled the ide controller device for now and my PC works fine without. Might even try uninstalling it.

[lodore]

interesting thread.
i have two IDE dvd drives since my old ones stopped working and my computer was under warrenty.
do you think xp loading two IDE dvd drives would take long than one?
is it the same for windows 2000 pro?
if so i might unplug the cd drive in my old pc since i dont really use that drive.
lodore

[Ciber]

Well I didnt find any improvement in disabling the ide controller in device manager and I'm worried it might be needed for something, so I've enabled it again.