Windows XP Slow Startup Problems.

You have a PC with a windows xp slow startup problem. At first your spanking new Desktop PC or laptop was running like a dream. Fast as lightning. Then as time progressed things started to happen. It takes a while to startup when you switch on. Occasionally things just seem to go at a crawl. Hah, Lets try one of those amazing fixit programs advertised. Shell out bucks and she’ll be OK. Humm…. That will fix the slow windows xp startup problems. Things seem to be a little bit better. What about that program that says you have a registry problem. That will fix it. Well believe it or not they may fix a lot of problems but they may not be the one you have got. They most probably not be what a lot of people have got.

I will tell you something about new PC’s and laptops. They have something in them that is mechanical.
Yes a hard drive. They are these days a sophisticated item but they are still mechanical.

My first PC was made by Wang. My first laptop was made by Wang. (I have still got it. Probably a collector’s item now). Some people may remember Wang. They were one of the original Word processing systems companies. Way before MS Word and they were good. (At the time) Well, they produced a PC. It had a 10 megabyte disk drive and I thought that was BIG. Yes it was mechanical and yes today’s disks are still mechanical. Now we consider gigabyte disk drives small.

Eventually disk drives will disappear as static (means it does move anything but bits) ram (for the un-initiated “random access memory”) becomes so cheap that this will do away with them.

In the meantime you have your mechanical disk drive.

Well to get these “bits”, in which a number of them make up your file, a mechanical head has to move over a recorded surface. Occasionally it may pick a bit up wrong. That’s OK the manufacturers knew this would happen so put in things called “checksums” that can up to a certain amount actually figure out what was missing and replace it. Good, that’s fine.

What about those it can’t? Well hard luck you have a corrupted file! The only way to fix that is to restore it from somewhere. But that is another subject. The main thing is that if this is some sort of system file it may cause some problems and slow down your PC until it either sorts itself out or gives up. (WOW a system crash) That makes a system really slow (like stopped).

Back to your slow system.

Let me explain the manufacture of hard disks. One thing the manufacturers know is that the disks they manufacture will have defects on the surfaces of them. They produce millions of them. Do they chuck away the ones with defects? No! Each one goes through a test. As they are tested and a defective part of the disk is found they use a bit of smarts and make that bit of disk unavailable. If the number of defective parts go over a certain number then they reject the disk.

It may be that you have a labeled 80gbyte disk. But in actual fact you may have only a 79.9999 gigabyte disk. What the heck, what’s a few bits between friends.

Unfortunately, sorry I had to say that word. Parts of the disk surface may become defective after-wards. You may not know it until months (or even a year) after you have bought your state of the art PC or laptop.

Why?

Well when you first got your PC you may only have used 6 or 7 gigabytes of your 80 gigabyte disk. Over the months or year you put on all your good stuff, (photo’s, games and such) Your disk gradually uses 30 gigabytes. (Got lots of photos you know) Then bingo one photo is written across the defective part.

One thing about windows xp is that it goes checking all the time around the used portion of the disk. It hits the defective part and hey, hold on minute have a look at this again, and again, and again as it tries to recover the file. Eventually if it can’t it times out. Wow your system springs back to life again. Now if this happens to a system file it may take longer. Your system may not crash but it will take longer checking it out.

This can manifest (yes, I know some posh words) in a slow startup when you first switch on. This is because windows does a lot of checking at this time. Unfortunately windows keeps a lot of this stuff to itself.

That’s what these purveyors of good stuff to fix everything up for you depend on.

Now I have got all the crap out of the way I had better tell you what you should do first before forking anything out. (money that is)

This is pertaining to windows xp but most of it is also relevant to other windows OS’s

The first thing is checking that damn disk for bad spots and corrupted files.

Perform the following:

1. On your start menu (bottom left corner) place your mouse pointer and click the right mouse button.
2. Place your mouse pointer on “explore” and click the left mouse button.
3. You should now have a screen showing your file structure.
4. Place your mouse over the part that probable says “Local Disk (C)” Whatever it is called it should have the (C).
5. Left click and it should highlight. Right click the mouse while it is selected.
6. You should get another menu. Right at the bottom you will see “properties”. Left click it.
7. You should get a box that shows a pretty circle with blue and pink segments in it. (If you have more pink than blue then you are in a good state space wise on your disk. If you have only a small sliver of pink then you are in some other trouble. Send me a comment if you want)
8. At the top of the box there is a menu. Click “Tools” with your left mouse button.
9. You should come up with another box. In it there should be a selection “Check Now”, left click it.
10. In the box that appears tick both of the “check disk” options with your left mouse buttons and then click “start“
11. You should then come up with a message with a load of waffle. Just click “yes“
12. You should now restart your system. When it comes up again it should show a messages saying “Checking Files System on C” and a countdown counter. Do not touch anything just let it count down and it will start checking your disk.
13. It will check in 5 phases. The first three are fairly quick but the last two can vary depending on how much data you have on your disk and the size of your disk. Go and have a cup of coffee and just let it ramble on.
14. What the check will do is make unavailable bad parts and it will attempt to restore some parts from a special segment of disk.
15. Eventually it will restart.

Note: Occasionally Windows XP does not pick up the signal to do a check. If not just repeat the above as I have always found if this happens it does it OK the second time.

Your windows xp slow startup problem and many other problems may have been resolved and if it did recover and clean up bad bits you may see an improvement. There are other factors that affect windows xp slow startup which I cover in other articles in this blog.

If after doing all the things that are recommended (and don’t cost you anything) then maybe you should look at the registry file as this can be a prime source of Windows XP slowing down.

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I was listening to the radio while I was working and heard something about windows xp slow startup. This made me stop and listen. It was a radio show that was talking about PC’s and windows in general no real techo stuff. What I heard next astounded me.

They were talking about a bit of software that you could buy that allowed you to access websites while windows was starting up. The software came about because some peoples computers took so long to start up with windows that this software made them more productive. Time was not wasted while they waited for windows to finish starting up.

I was flabbergasted. They did not state how long these PC’s took to startup windows but they must be taking a long time to make this software worthwhile specially seeing that they mentioned that it cost $50 – $60 a year to subscribe.

Windows xp slow down is considered if a PC takes more than a minute or two to startup windows xp. If it takes as long as to make windows xp slow enough to warrant a program to make up for lost time then there is something drastically wrong with one’s computer.

I can tell you, to check and fix your windows xp slow startup problem would cost you a sight less than $60 (and this is only one time).

But first consider how old your PC is. Is it getting a bit long in the tooth. Windows has grown in size and complexity over the years, even more so over the last couple. Older PC’s just cannot manage the overheads now being imposed by the windows operating system and the application programs now being developed.

If your PC is over 4 – 5 years old think about replacing the box. They are a lot cheaper these days and you will get at least 10 times the power from the most modest PC Box you can buy today costing 200 – 300 bucks. You don’t need to buy all the other stuff you already have.

Anyway there are real things you can do to alleviate your windows xp slow startup problem and believe me if you have a start up problem then you also have a problem with windows running slow when your PC has finally finished starting up.

There are a lot of things you can do like cleaning up your disk, Defraging your hard drive, fixing up your windows xp registry file and a host of other things. My blog “Windows XP Slow Startup” will show you just what you can do yourself to speed up your PC.

Unfortunately you may have to pay something to fix your problem but if you have to buy a piece of software to enable you to circumnavigate your windows xp slow problem then you are just fooling yourself. You have a problem, fix it, do not just work around it and wear it.

If you really would like to do something about your Windows XP slow problem then read further at Windows XP Slow Startup.

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To diagnose and correct windows xp startup problems, you need to understand the startup process. The first step in isolating startup problems is for you to figure out whether the problem occurs before, during, or after Windows XP Professional starts up. The root cause of startup failure, including contributing factors, can stem from a variety of problems, such as user error, application faults, hardware failures, or virus activity. If the condition is serious enough, you might need to reinstall Windows XP Professional or restore files from backup media.

In x86-based systems, windows xp startup problems that occur before the operating system loader (Ntldr) starts could indicate missing or deleted files, or it could indicate damage to the hard disk master boot record (MBR), partition table, or boot sector. If a problem occurs during startup, the system might have incompatible software or drivers, incompatible or improperly configured hardware, or corrupted system files.

The startup process for x64-based computers is the same as that of x86-based computers.

The Windows XP startup process closely resembles that of Microsoft Windows NT version 4.0, Microsoft Windows 2000, and Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, but it significantly differs from Microsoft MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, and Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me).

All computers running Windows XP Professional share the same startup sequence:

• Power-on self test (POST) phase
• Initial startup phase
• Boot loader phase
• Detect and configure hardware phase
• Kernel loading phase
• Logon phase

The preceding startup sequence applies to systems started or restarted after a normal shutdown, and it does not apply when you bring your computer out of hibernation or standby. There are different windows xp startup problems that might occur when you bring your computer out of standby or hibernation during the windows xp startup under these circumstances.

Read a funny article about Windows Startup problems going to “Windows XP Slow“

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