Computer taking a long time to boot.

[rheebrosinc]

So I built a PC to act as my media server, but it's taking a long time for it to boot. It just goes to the windows logo screen with the black background and just hangs there.

This is my build:
COOLER MASTER HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 Black SECC/ ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

LG 24X DVD Burner - Bare Drive 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH24NS95 - OEM

MSI FM2-A85XMA-E35 FM2 Trinity AMD A85X (Hudson D4) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD A8-5600K Trinity 3.6GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 7560D AD560KWOHJBOX

ENERMAX NAXN ADV. 82+ ETL650AWT 650W ATX12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10

BUFFALO AirStation HighPower N150 Wireless USB Adapter - WLI-UC-GNHP

OS: Windows 7 professional 64bit SP1

I went into the MSI bios and went into the hard drive BBS priorities and only enabled the hard drive with the OS installed and every other ports disabled. All of my hard drives are connected to 6Gb/s sata ports.

What's weird is that I haven't encountered this problem originally.
I will mention that one of the hard drives is bad so I've been trying to salvage the files, but I'm not sure if that is the root of the problem. I was thinking this was more of a software issue....

Anyways, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[ex_bubblehead]

If you have a failing drive connected it will most certainly impact startup. Disconnect the bad drive.

 

[rheebrosinc]

I had external Hard drives but I removed them from their external enclosures and just popped them in the drive bays. So I don't have any externals attached. I'll disconnect my bad drive and see how it goes. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Also, are you running AHCI or anything such as this? It might be worth a gander at your BIOS or your Motherboard manufacturer's site for new BIOS versions/updates or see if this is in their Knowledge Base.

 

[rheebrosinc]

Also, are you running AHCI or anything such as this? It might be worth a gander at your BIOS or your Motherboard manufacturer's site for new BIOS versions/updates or see if this is in their Knowledge Base.

Are you talking about this?
On-Board SATA

• 6x SATA 6Gb/s ports by AMD® A85X
- Supports storage and data transfer at up to 6Gb/s
- SATA1~6 ports support RAID 0/1/5/10/JBOD modes by AMD® A85X


This is the product page at the manufacturers site or do I have to go directly into the BIOS and I can find out there?

 

[Guest]

Usually if you're running a RAID or AHCI setup on your SATA drives after POST your computer will list drives/run a program stating RAID or AHCI drives. If you're not using either then it shouldn't do anything but boot. You can check the IDE Mode through your BIOS.

Also, it might be a good idea to make sure that all your Chipset drivers, Graphics Card drivers, and BIOS are up to date.

Make sure you get these directly from the manufacturer's site and disable the automatic driver updates in Windows Update, as the drivers that Windows gives you usually aren't the best ones for the job.

Also, go through your msconfig and see what's under the "Startup" tab, and make sure to run some anti-virus programs to insure this is not the issue that's being overlooked.

 

[TenPc]

Your ram is a single channel ra mmodule and not part of a pair or a kit so that would slow down the boot up process. Better to have a pair of ram.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233218

Motherboard - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130680

Check your hdd, it might be near to full or lacking in adequate free space.

 

[rheebrosinc]

Once I removed the bad hard drive, computer boots up fine. I have a docking station for hard drives so I'll put my failing one in there and connect it to my pc, and try to recover what I can. THanks

 

[rheebrosinc]

This does bring me to another question. I would try to boot the pc and it would just hang at the windows splash screen. So what I did was go into the system recovery and went into the command prompt and did a chkdsk /f on my main hard drive. After that, I rebooted my pc and everything was fine. I did some stuff and turned of the comp. After I come home from work, I turned on the pc and it still hangs at the windows splash screen.

RIght now I'm in the start up recovery window and the it says fixing hard drive error or something like that. It's been a little bit over 3 hours and I have I think 4 hard drives connected that are at least 1TB. How long could this process take? I'm just curious because if it could maybe have to do the sata cables not being properly or firmly plugged in or something like that.

What are some suggestion as to how I can avoid this in the future?

Thanks

 

[TenPc]

If you change the sata cable connections in some way after the OS install, Widows has trouble finding what goes where, especially if you had changed the OS hdd connection from Sata port 0 to port 5 (for example).

 

[rheebrosinc]

If you change the sata cable connections in some way after the OS install, Widows has trouble finding what goes where, especially if you had changed the OS hdd connection from Sata port 0 to port 5 (for example).

Are you saying when I'm connecting my Hard drives to the sata ports, they should be done in a certain order?

I'm not sure if this is a hardware issue or OS. I'm thinking it has to do something with the BIOS. I'm planning on trying 2 things. Updating the BIOS and if that doesn't work, then I'll clear the CMOS.

 

[TenPc]

The OS hdd after install is set to the registry to that sata port and connection, if you change to a fifferent sata port on the motherboard after the OS install then Windows no longer sees that the OS hdd is on the correct path but different path (port). and takes a bit longer to find the system.

So, if you had the xconnection on port 1 then sometime changed it to port 3 then the OS (hdd) path is different.

 

[rheebrosinc]

The OS hdd after install is set to the registry to that sata port and connection, if you change to a fifferent sata port on the motherboard after the OS install then Windows no longer sees that the OS hdd is on the correct path but different path (port). and takes a bit longer to find the system.

So, if you had the xconnection on port 1 then sometime changed it to port 3 then the OS (hdd) path is different.

oh okay. well I didn't physically move the sata port connections.

 

[TenPc]

Don't have the "BUFFALO AirStation HighPower N150 Wireless USB Adapter " connected to the usb port prior to boot up. Plug it in after you have reached desktop and only if you are in need of it.

Check the bios for primary boot device, it should be the HDD with the OS as first boot and Primary boot.

You also need to get a pair of ram.

 

[rheebrosinc]

Don't have the "BUFFALO AirStation HighPower N150 Wireless USB Adapter " connected to the usb port prior to boot up. Plug it in after you have reached desktop and only if you are in need of it.

Check the bios for primary boot device, it should be the HDD with the OS as first boot and Primary boot.

You also need to get a pair of ram.

The HDD with the OS is the first boot and primary boot. I'll plug out the adapter. and I am looking for another pair or ram.

If I still encounter a problem should I to restore my mobo to factory settings?

 

[TenPc]

I'm not sure about the reset to factory settings, that only works if the rig came pre-installed with an OS otherwise you may end up with a blank hdd and no OS.

There are other things that drag a boot to desktop, if you got full files on the desktop, they are included in the boot processes that can cause the prolonged hourglass, better to move them to a folder in the Documents folder and create a shortcut to that folder, also, the task bar (right-corner) should not have more than 15 icons as it implies that you have many other applicatins utilizing the boot up procedure, programs like Skype, Messenger, iTunes, etc... that don't need to get loaded, you can start them up from a shortcut on the desktop area.

A "Media Server", what is your intention of that to be?

 

[rheebrosinc]

I'm not sure about the reset to factory settings, that only works if the rig came pre-installed with an OS otherwise you may end up with a blank hdd and no OS.

There are other things that drag a boot to desktop, if you got full files on the desktop, they are included in the boot processes that can cause the prolonged hourglass, better to move them to a folder in the Documents folder and create a shortcut to that folder, also, the task bar (right-corner) should not have more than 15 icons as it implies that you have many other applicatins utilizing the boot up procedure, programs like Skype, Messenger, iTunes, etc... that don't need to get loaded, you can start them up from a shortcut on the desktop area.

A "Media Server", what is your intention of that to be?

I had a bunch of external hard drives with media files and all that. But I didn't want to keep plugging in and out, so I wanted to put them in a centralized location and be accessible from anywhere in the house.

I didn't realize that what you have on the desktop affects your bootup process. that might be another reason I should look into.

I just want to reset my mobo because an update it's made might have affected my bootup process so, just trying to eliminate possibilities.

 

[TenPc]

Small files on the desktop up to about 10mb are okay but lots of people have gb size files on the desktop and not just one or two, sometimes ten or twenty of them.

Alsdo, consider the free space available on the OS hdd, you'd need at least 15% free space, better for 25% or more though.

So what did you do with all those external hdd's ? Are they now installed inside the PC case? Have you really got 9 hdd's?

 

[rheebrosinc]

Small files on the desktop up to about 10mb are okay but lots of people have gb size files on the desktop and not just one or two, sometimes ten or twenty of them.

Alsdo, consider the free space available on the OS hdd, you'd need at least 15% free space, better for 25% or more though.

So what did you do with all those external hdd's ? Are they now installed inside the PC case? Have you really got 9 hdd's?

I have enough space. What happened was I had a failing hard drive, so I was trying to transfer what files I could and I created a folder on the desktop and copied them there. lol, I don't have 9, more like 4 and yes they are in my case.

 

[TenPc]

On the desktop, that folder of files, what volume is it?
You should move that whole folder to the Documents folder (directory), you can use the Send To option with Right-click then delete the desktop folder when done.

Disable indexing to all hdd's including C: drive but not if C: is a spin disk type.
Disable start up apps like Anti-viris scan, and apps likeiTunes, Skype etc, the more apps in the right corner tasker, the longer it takes to boot to desktop.

If your C: drive is SSD, you should not have any of your own files like media photos, movies etc, put them on to an other hdd. Music files tend to get copied back to the music folder even though you may have had them moved to another hdd, you need to disable the option in oyur media app (Windows Medial Player, itunes, RealPlayer etc) so that new music or scanned files are not copied back to the musivc folder in the Documents driectory.