Help! Windows takes forever to load

[karen45]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice. I have a PC from mesh, its Intel Pentium D80 Dual Core, with ASUS P5b-TMX motherboard. I've had the PC for just over a year...

I've been having problems with Windows XP starting up, it stays on the Windows XP screen (with the blue bar at the bottom) for up to 10 minutes, then just resets and the process continues for sometimes up to an hour before it eventually loads. Some times take longer than others, doesn't seem to be consistent. Once loaded all is fine.

I reinstalled Windows using the recovery CD thinking this would fix the problem, after reinstalling I only installed a few bits of software, MSN etc, nothing weird or that I didn't have before....but its still happening.

I'm not sure how to go about analyzing the problem, I enabled boot logging and I have a log which shows 10 drivers did not load... also looked at Event Viewer and seems to have quite a few errors, mostly "disk" - does this mean the hard-drives worn out? to be honest, i'm a complete n00b and have nooooo idea what to do or where to start...drivers? hardware? I don't know!

Any advice offered (in relatively simple terms! :p ) would be very much appreciated

Thanks

[Paul Komski]

If its still so slow after a clean reinstall then failing hardware (with a poor HDD being high on the list) is a distinct probability.

Try testing the HDD with the makers diagnostics from the HDD maker's website. There is also a generic program called HDTune (http://www.hdtune.com/) which you could try from Windows.

[karen45]

Hi, thanks for replying, I ran HD tune and got 9 red blocks... which is 0.3% damaged blocks. Do you know how bad this is/does it make it anymore likely to be a cause of the problem..... thanks

[Paul Komski]

Any HDD that is developing bad sectors like that is not, IMHO, worth keeping in use - even if it is zeroed and stuff reinstalled on it. It may well be the reason for your slowness with the same areas of the drive having to be re-read a number of times before the data can be interpreted. I would suggest getting a replacement and then transfer the data from one to the other drive using a program like copy/wipe (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php) or else do a clean reinstall on the new drive.

[karen45]

have ordered a new drive, will install windows on it (have data backed up elsewhere) so hopefully that solves the problem,
thanks for your help! :)

[mjc]

It is more of where the bad spots are on the drive than how many...just one bad spot in the area of the drive used to store the boot sector can turn it into a brick, rather quickly.

[Paul Komski]

Agree that bad sectors can be more critical in some areas than others but the general principle, when a drive that has developed faults in at least 9 separate areas, of not trusting it would seem to be wise. Drives seldom stop failing and we know already that you have an abnormally slow system.