Author Topic: slow boot on new hard drive problem (Read 19157 times)

techidave · « **on:** February 22, 2008, 05:03 PM »

I have put the same new HD in 3 different computers and they experience the same problems. It is on a Western Digital 80 and 160gb Caviar SE drives with the jumper set to master. It takes a really long time to get through the post and boot into windows. I have tried re-imaging the drive but to no avail. If I set the jumper to cable select then everything works as it should. I have run MemTest plus and also have tested the hard drives for errors using WD Diags but everything tests out ok.

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas?

Dave

this is an IDE drive in a desktop (whitebox). it doesn't matter how I set the BIOS or anything like that.

Darwin · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2008, 05:55 PM »

Check Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Settings and go to the IDE entry. Click on the Primary IDE Channel entry and make sure that it is set to DMA if Available and NOT PIO... Just a thought (I recently had the same problem, which is why this came to mind).

cmpm · « **Reply #2 on:** February 22, 2008, 06:19 PM »

Okay here's the deal with Western Digital SATA 3.0Gb/s drives. If your Mobo does not have a SATA 3.0Gb/s connection but does have a SATA 150 then all you have to do is place a jumper on pins 5&6. Which would be column 2 if you were going from left to right.

from newegg comments on the 160 Caviar

cmpm · « **Reply #3 on:** February 22, 2008, 06:24 PM »

If the jumper is set to master then it needs a slave, otherwise it doesn't need a jumper.
This is the case on my western digital drives.
Not sure if things are different with yours.
Not sure how old mine are, but they are Caviar drives.
But mine are not sata drives, are yours?

techidave · « **Reply #4 on:** February 22, 2008, 07:53 PM »

No cmpm, mine are not sata drives.

Darwin, those settings in windows wouldn't affect the booting process before XP loads, would they?

Nosh, I will check those settings tomorrow when I am back at school.

mouser · « **Reply #5 on:** February 22, 2008, 07:56 PM »

If I set the jumper to cable select then everything works as it should.

that's weird but... why not just leave it on cable select then?

techidave · « **Reply #6 on:** February 22, 2008, 08:03 PM »

typically it boots faster if its set to master, then it doesn't have to search to see which part of teh ide cable it set to. If you set the cd drive to master it will make a difference also.

its all about speed.

cmpm · « **Reply #7 on:** February 22, 2008, 08:40 PM »

1. When your computer boots-
does it show the hard drives first?
if not, then switch the hard drive and cd connection cables at the motherboard.

2. If your hard drive cable is also connected to cd drives or anything other then hard drives, there will be a reduction in performance.

3. The Jumper setting for master w/slave is the middle jumper.
Set the slave drive to slave with jumper on correct setting. can't remember which one that is though. WD would have that info.

4. Again, no slave, no jumpers. Double check with WD, in case I'm mistaken. But this is how my hard drives work on 4 machines with WD Caviar hard drives.

techidave · « **Reply #8 on:** February 22, 2008, 08:46 PM »

1. ti does show the hard drive first. it does take a while before the BIOS recognizeds it.

2. no its not. I don't connect hard drives and cd drives on the same cable.

3. its correct. I have no slaves installed.

4. I have it set on the "master" that is marked on the drive. that is the way I have always done it, but this is the first time I have had something like this happen.

cmpm · « **Reply #9 on:** February 22, 2008, 09:04 PM »

Well....if it don't work with no jumpers,
(which it should)
I'd go with cable select and move on till i found better info
if it is around......

you could try-

http://www.geekstogo...om/forum/forums.html

select the hardware thread, i'd say
and post the situation fully
they are quite brilliant there

techidave · « **Reply #10 on:** February 22, 2008, 09:10 PM »

I will give the no jumpers a try also and check the other forum.

tinjaw · « **Reply #11 on:** February 22, 2008, 09:40 PM »

Sounds like you are setting the jumpers to master and putting the drive on the slave connector on the ribbon.

If you have a master HDD on IDE0 and a CD/DVD on IDE1, in the BIOS set IDE0 Secondary to NONE and IDE1 Primary to NONE. Put the HDD on IDE0 Primary and the optical drive on IDE1 Secondary and set it to CDROM in the BIOS.

This way time won't be wasted auto seeking non-existent drives.

techidave · « **Reply #12 on:** February 22, 2008, 09:46 PM »

No Tinjaw, the drive is set to the master connector on the ribbon cable, that is the very end one.

My hard drive shows up in the BIOS as primary master and my cd drive shows up as secondary master just as all of the other 250 computers do that I take care of and do not have this problem. It has to be something in the drive being the problem follows to another computer as stated in my first post.

The question I have is why.. is the hard drive bad or is this the way they are making them now????

techidave · « **Reply #13 on:** February 22, 2008, 09:54 PM »

here is a response from Western Digital's website when asked the same question (but not from me). I have set them to master for a long time without problems, just cannot figure out why all of a sudden its going to be a problem.


   System takes a long time to boot up. The BIOS is slow to detect the hard drive.
   Question
   Why does my system take a long time to boot up after installing a new drive?
   Answer
   Problem:
After installing a drive, the BIOS takes longer than normal to recognize the drive. This results in a longer than normal boot up time.

Cause:
The most common cause for this is incorrect Jumper Settings.

Resolution:
Verify that you are using the correct jumper settings for your configuration.

Single:
If the drive is the only device on the IDE cable, the jumper shunt should be removed completely or on pins 4-6.

Master:
If the drive is a master with a slave present on the same cable, the jumper shunt should be on pins 5-6.

Slave:
If the drive is a slave to a master drive on the same cable, the jumper shunt should be on pins 3-4.

Note: Make sure that non-WD EIDE devices are jumpered correctly as well. Please contact the device manufacturer if you are unsure of the jumper settings.

cmpm · « **Reply #14 on:** February 22, 2008, 10:49 PM »

Thanks for looking that up techidave.
It helps me too.

No jumpers is how I always do it and it works.

I haven't used pins 4-6 though.

Could be a bad pin connection.
Or try a different jumper setting piece,
I don't even know what it's called except a jumper or doohiky thing!
A 'Jumper Shunt'..hmmm learn something here all the time

Did you try no jumpers?

Darwin · « **Reply #15 on:** February 22, 2008, 11:55 PM »

Darwin, those settings in windows wouldn't affect the booting process before XP loads, would they?
-techidave (February 22, 2008, 07:53 PM)

No... you're right (I think. I don't know

). I didn't read your original post closely enough and thought there was an overall system slowdown. FWIW, on my wife's notebook the system booted very slowly and ran very slowly. Switching from PIO to DMA solved both issues (and then my 5 year old dropped it on the floor rendering the whole thing moot!).

techidave · « **Reply #16 on:** February 23, 2008, 06:26 AM »

I am fixing to head off to school to try out these ideas and time it until it boots to windows. This is a fresh install of windows xp and nothing else is on it so I shouldn't have to worry about malware, etc interfering. I will post my times with the different options listed above later.

techidave · « **Reply #17 on:** February 23, 2008, 07:49 AM »

Ok here is what I found on my Western Digital WD1600JB Caviar SE (mfg Jan 2007) on a Celeron 2.7 with 384 meg of RAM.

I used this link to show me how to position the jumper. http://wdc.custhelp...._li=&p_topview=1

Jumper set to cable select=50 seconds.
Jumper set to master=2.5 minutes and then disk boot failure
No jumpers=40 seconds
Jumpers on pins 4 & 6=40 seconds (this setting is basically a storage position, works the same as none).

Apparently in the master position,it has to have a slave on the same cable. Not sure if the age of the drive affects this or not.
I did check the DMA settings both in Windows and in the BIOS and they were set to use DMA in both places.

One of these days I will check an older drive like a WD400BB and see how it performs. I still wonder if WD didn't change something on their newer drives.

And life goes on and on...

Dave

f0dder · « **Reply #18 on:** February 23, 2008, 12:45 PM »

If the jumper is set to master then it needs a slave, otherwise it doesn't need a jumper.
-cmpm

Wrong, and the opposite generally doesn't hold true either (a slave needs a master) - I've seen a few BIOSes (or chipsets? Or combination?) that were quirky if you set a drive to slave but had no master, though.

Darwin, those settings in windows wouldn't affect the booting process before XP loads, would they?
-techidave

the very early Windwos boot process (loading kernel & drivers) is done using BIOS calls, but after that, the Windows drivers take over for loading the rest (user interface, startup programs, et cetera)... so those settings do have an effect.

Sounds like you are setting the jumpers to master and putting the drive on the slave connector on the ribbon.
-tinjaw

Master/slave connectors on the ribbon really only matter if you're doing cable select... that's why the jumper is called that, and not "auto"

Anyway, sounds like some pretty weird problems - I've never seen anything like it, and I've used a wide range of different drives (including multiple Western Digitals). Perhaps those two drives you have just have some flaky firmware?

cmpm · « **Reply #19 on:** February 23, 2008, 01:00 PM »

Well I guess you just haven't seen everything fodder!
So you are wrong with this particular drive.
Since it does not work with the jumper set to master.

I don't mind being wrong and corrected.

And now you are guessing, -you don't know-?

f0dder · « **Reply #20 on:** February 23, 2008, 01:07 PM »

I don't know everything, and I often make (educated, I believe

) guesses.

One drive (or series of drives) might be flaky, that doesn't change the big picture though - that there's generally no problem setting a drive to "master" even though there's no slave. I've lost count of the number of computers I've assembled or upgraded, but it's probably in the 100+ range... and I've never had a problem with single-master-drive. There's been countless of problems with boxes using cable select though, and obviously things like putting two master drives on one cable also has funny effects

It does puzzle me that techidave is having these problems, especially since he says he's tried it on three different computers - hints that it's the drive and not motherboard chipset that's acting flaky.

techidave · « **Reply #21 on:** February 23, 2008, 01:26 PM »

I tried a WD400BB date in 2004 and a WD300BB dated 2001 and the boot times were the same as were the error when set to master. I am preparing to try a Seagate just for fun.

Maybe I just thought I had been setting them at Master but am 95% sure that I have. Although I was using the cable select method, I did change some or almost all of the 150 desktops I take care of to master. The only way I will know is to take a cover off and look.

Not that it matters to me who is right or wrong

or anything else but just hearing about the possible solutions that could or might fix my problem was very educational.

I would like to see someone else try changing their WD drive to master and see what happens. I find it hard to believe that 3 hard drives made in different years can all have bad firmware.

With all the members that the DC forum has, surely somebody has the answer.

Dave

f0dder · « **Reply #22 on:** February 23, 2008, 02:14 PM »

Most of the WD drives I have around here are SATA, but I do have a single IDE WD3200JB lying around - and I see that it has two master settings, one that's called "Single or Master" (no jumper), and another "Master w/ Slave Present" (pins 5-6). Got two of those in the fileserver at the museum, and I believe they're in the no-jumper configuration mode.

Dunno why it needs two different "master" modes, the other IDE drives I have lying around don't have stuff like that - master, slave, cable select... and some of them has various max amounts of gigabyte clip settings.

techidave · « **Reply #23 on:** February 23, 2008, 02:26 PM »

I have used the following WD drives

WD1600JB dated 2007, 8mb buffer at 7200 RPM.
WD400BB dated 2004, 2 mb buffer at 7200 RPM.
WD300BB dated 2001, 2 mb buffer at 5400 RPM
all of these took 40 seconds from power on to windows desktop in cable select and with no jumpers. In the master jumper setting they all showed the disk boot failure after 2.5 minutes of trying to boot.

I also installed a Seagate ST316023A 160gb drive, 8 mb buffer at 7200 RPM.
It also took 40 seconds in the cable select mode and also in the master mode.

So it must be an issue with Western Digital since Seagate will work in Master.

I reimaged each drive before testing with Windows XP Pro SP2 and all windows updates, nothing else installed.

Confusing but not amusing!

I believe this concludes my saga unless someone perks my interest to pick it up and try something else again.

f0dder · « **Reply #24 on:** February 23, 2008, 02:44 PM »

Well, the WD IDE drive I have lying on my desk calls the no-jumper mode "Single or Master", where the pins 5&6 jumper setting is called "Master w/ Slave Present"... dunno why they need two different master settings? Can you try if putting a slave drive on the same cable as a no-jumper drive works?