I was recently upgrading my primary boot disk in my desktop PC (upgrading from an OCZ Vertex2 to a Samsung 840 Pro SSD) and after the usual exercise, I found an odd problem.
During bootup, the system would hang on the "Starting Windows" screen (the throbbing windows logo) and pause for about one minute. After this delay elapsed, my KB would then initialize normally, and the boot splash screen would disappear and normal bootup would take place.
After a lot of trouble I discovered the following were not the source of the problem:
I list these here because they include most of the usual suspects to investigate when trying to solve boot delays.
In the end, the solution was simple. I had to unplug my external Thermaltake BlackX eSATA disk dock.
I had plugged it in as part of my boot disk cloning (I use TrueImage) and hadn't removed it. When it was connected but with no disk in it, it caused the system boot hang.
I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing it was causing some 60-second AHCI disk command/discovery to timeout during boot.
During bootup, the system would hang on the "Starting Windows" screen (the throbbing windows logo) and pause for about one minute. After this delay elapsed, my KB would then initialize normally, and the boot splash screen would disappear and normal bootup would take place.
After a lot of trouble I discovered the following were not the source of the problem:
- Rolling back recent Windows Updates
- My new SSD disk (vs. the old one)
- SSD settings in WIndows
- SSD drive firmware
- AHCI settings in BIOS/Windows
- MS AHCI drivers vs. AMD AHCI drivers
- BIOS disk boot sequence
- Removal of my SATA DVD-RW drive
- Hibernation and Pagefile settings and systems
I list these here because they include most of the usual suspects to investigate when trying to solve boot delays.
In the end, the solution was simple. I had to unplug my external Thermaltake BlackX eSATA disk dock.
I had plugged it in as part of my boot disk cloning (I use TrueImage) and hadn't removed it. When it was connected but with no disk in it, it caused the system boot hang.
I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing it was causing some 60-second AHCI disk command/discovery to timeout during boot.
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