Very long W2K boot

Hi everyone. I didn't know if this is a mobo issue, HD issue or OS issue so if this needs to be moved to another forum please do.

Ever since I built my new rig a month ago Win2K just sits at the splash screen at 50% for about 45 seconds, then there is HD activity, the bar moves 2 blocks and it sits again for 20 seconds and then it shoots to 100% and bang, zoom...I'm at the login screen. Every thing else is really fast so I just don't know if it's supposed to do this or if I'm being impatient. My celeron 433 actually got booted quicker so I think something is amiss.

Specs:
MSI K7T266Pro2-RU
Athlon T-bird 1 GHz @ 1 GHz
512 PC2100 RAM
1 20GB WD Caviar ATA100 7200
1 15GB Maxtor 5400 (as the slave for a couple of days)
No RAID array configured
56xCDROM
Windows 2000 Pro SP2+all patches

I do get a message about a 80pin cable not in use when the system first goes through the HD detection but it goes by so fast I can't see what the full message is.

Thanks for everyones time.

J.

right when the message come sup hit the Break key (Pause key) see if it will pause the screen to see the message.

Sounds like a hardware conflect or somthing. But this cable thing maybe doing it. try to get the message. Then post it back for more help.

It may be looking for a Domain server or a network connection as well. Make sure you do not have old network connections that are not viable.

[quote]
Originally posted by DocPC:

It may be looking for a Domain server or a network connection as well. Make sure you do not have old network connections that are not viable.<hr></blockquote>

The system did this after a fresh install. I do however have cable access but everything is DHCP except for computer name. Even with the same network setup, my celeron 433 still booted faster. Nothing with networking changed between my first setup and this one... just the hardware.

Here is the message I get for each IDE controller during detection before the OS boot:

Ultra DMA mode-2 SMART capable but disabled
Primary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed

Then the W2K booting process starts without a problem but when the full color Windows 2000 screen appears with the status bar at the bottom, thats where is hangs as described in my first post.

What do I check from here?

I had the same problem after a fresh install of Win 2k Pro recently. I had not yet installed Norton or Black Ice on the machine and I dialed into my company' VPN on anther machine on my home network. When I rebooted the Win 2k machine it took several minutes to boot (its a Celly 500 w/128mb RAM). After a few minutes several other machines on my network detected a NIMDA attack which was caught by Black Ice. I ended up reformatting and reloading the 2k machine, but I strongly suspect the prob was caused by the NIMDA attack.

[quote]
Originally posted by KINGofBLEH:

I ended up reformatting and reloading the 2k machine, but I strongly suspect the prob was caused by the NIMDA attack. <hr></blockquote>

I've ran several virus scans, nothing found. Also zone alarm is reporting no strange outbound traffic.

Anything else to look at?

This is pretty normal behavior for Windows 2000. It seems that with certain hardware configuratoins the boot process can take a lot longer than others. In particular I've found it can be related to CD-ROM drives (I saw a paricular type slow the boot process like this), and possibly any devices connected to the parallel port.

Try disconnecting you CD-ROM and anything on the parallel port and see if it boots any faster.

win2k is not built for the athlon cpu's. i recently built a 1ghz athlon, with win2k and it boots slow. i use a P3 1ghz and it boots fast, so i think its just something between the OS and AMD procs.

It's probably worth replacing the IDE cable with a UDMA 66/100 80 core cable. There should have been one included with the new mobo. You should notice improved speed.