Vista slow boot with USB external drive

Casey · External Since: Jun 10, 2006 Posts: 16

Hi,
If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot Vista, it
takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea what's
going on with the drive during the startup process?

Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green progress
bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.

Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few minutes
after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk activity on
the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then starts
normally.

I've tried the following, to no avail:
- Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
- Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
- Disabling indexing on the drive
- Disabling readyboost and some other services
- Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format

When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that hidusb.sys
and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys files
aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.

I would appreciate any and all help.

Bob · External Since: Jan 23, 2007 Posts: 159

"Casey" <Casey.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:32437ECC-FFEB-4752-A691-25044A5F5750@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
> If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot Vista,
> it
> takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea
> what's
> going on with the drive during the startup process?
>
> Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green
> progress
> bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.
>
> Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few minutes
> after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk activity
> on
> the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then starts
> normally.
>
> I've tried the following, to no avail:
> - Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
> listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
> - Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
> - Disabling indexing on the drive
> - Disabling readyboost and some other services
> - Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format
>
> When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that
> hidusb.sys
> and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys files
> aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.
>
> I would appreciate any and all help.
>

You can check to see what Vista reports as far as performance,
startup/shutdown issues:

Control Panel
System Maintenance
Performance Information and Tools
in the left pane, Advanced tools
cause of long startup/shutdown should be near the top under performance
issues.
Bob

Casey · External Since: Jun 10, 2006 Posts: 16

"Bob" wrote:

> "Casey" <Casey.RemoveThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:32437ECC-FFEB-4752-A691-25044A5F5750@microsoft.com...
> > Hi,
> > If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot Vista,
> > it
> > takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea
> > what's
> > going on with the drive during the startup process?
> >
> > Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green
> > progress
> > bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.
> >
> > Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few minutes
> > after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk activity
> > on
> > the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then starts
> > normally.
> >
> > I've tried the following, to no avail:
> > - Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
> > listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
> > - Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
> > - Disabling indexing on the drive
> > - Disabling readyboost and some other services
> > - Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format
> >
> > When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that
> > hidusb.sys
> > and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys files
> > aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.
> >
> > I would appreciate any and all help.
> >
>
>
> You can check to see what Vista reports as far as performance,
> startup/shutdown issues:
>
> Control Panel
> System Maintenance
> Performance Information and Tools
> in the left pane, Advanced tools
> cause of long startup/shutdown should be near the top under performance
> issues.
> Bob
>

Here's the info from the Diagnostics-Performance error on startup (see
comments below):

BootTsVersion 2
BootStartTime 2007-03-23T04:21:38.700Z
BootEndTime 2007-03-23T04:25:11.006Z
SystemBootInstance 42
UserBootInstance 41
BootTime 127688
MainPathBootTime 86088
BootKernelInitTime 27
BootDriverInitTime 2428
BootDevicesInitTime 4690
BootPrefetchInitTime 28491
BootPrefetchBytes 331677696
BootAutoChkTime 0
BootSmssInitTime 63080
BootCriticalServicesInitTime 2460
BootUserProfileProcessingTime 781
BootMachineProfileProcessingTime 1078
BootExplorerInitTime 8442
BootNumStartupApps 3
BootPostBootTime 41600
BootIsRebootAfterInstall false
BootRootCauseStepImprovementBits 0
BootRootCauseGradualImprovementBits 0
BootRootCauseStepDegradationBits 0
BootRootCauseGradualDegradationBits 0
BootIsDegradation false
BootIsStepDegradation false
BootIsGradualDegradation false
BootImprovementDelta 0
BootDegradationDelta 0
BootIsRootCauseIdentified false

The entry " BootPrefetchBytes 331677696 " looks suspicious. Is SuperFetch
throwing prefetched data onto my USB hard drive? The ReadyBoot tab in the
drive properties states that my drive doesn't have the required performance
to speed up my system, and I have the box checked to "Stop retesting the
device when I plug it in". Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Steve Thackery · External Since: Feb 05, 2007 Posts: 171

See the thread below entitled 'Readyboost deletes cache on reboot'.

Some people's systems seem to delete the Readyboost cache, reformat the
drive, and rebuild the cache on every boot. It isn't happening on all.

This is presumably a bug.

Does anyone know how to report Vista bugs to MS??

Steve

Casey · External Since: Jun 10, 2006 Posts: 16

"Steve Thackery" wrote:

> See the thread below entitled 'Readyboost deletes cache on reboot'.
>
> Some people's systems seem to delete the Readyboost cache, reformat the
> drive, and rebuild the cache on every boot. It isn't happening on all.
>
> This is presumably a bug.
>
> Does anyone know how to report Vista bugs to MS??
>
> Steve
>

Thanks for the information. Sounds like that could be the same thing I'm
seeing. It would seem like disabling the ReadyBoost service would have some
effect on that, but it doesn't seem to, at least on my setup. If the service
was disabled, would Vista still be creating/deleting the cache as described
in that thread?

BTW, another other odd thing is that within the last day or so, I don't hear
activity on the external disk during the 3 minute period of blank screen. I
used to. I scanned the disk for errors just in case and it came back as
being error-free.

Thanks for your input.

Rock · External Since: Feb 10, 2007 Posts: 2069

"Casey" <Casey RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> Hi,
> If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot Vista,
> it
> takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea
> what's
> going on with the drive during the startup process?
>
> Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green
> progress
> bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.
>
> Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few minutes
> after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk activity
> on
> the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then starts
> normally.
>
> I've tried the following, to no avail:
> - Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
> listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
> - Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
> - Disabling indexing on the drive
> - Disabling readyboost and some other services
> - Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format
>
> When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that
> hidusb.sys
> and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys files
> aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.
>
> I would appreciate any and all help.

It's a BIOS issue and depends on the external drive. I have that effect in
XP (in a dual boot with Vista though the effect was there before Vista was
installed), where one external drive causes a delay and two others don't.
None of the drives causes any delay in booting Vista.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

Casey · External Since: Jun 10, 2006 Posts: 16

"Rock" wrote:

> "Casey" <Casey RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> > Hi,
> > If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot Vista,
> > it
> > takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea
> > what's
> > going on with the drive during the startup process?
> >
> > Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green
> > progress
> > bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.
> >
> > Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few minutes
> > after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk activity
> > on
> > the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then starts
> > normally.
> >
> > I've tried the following, to no avail:
> > - Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
> > listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
> > - Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
> > - Disabling indexing on the drive
> > - Disabling readyboost and some other services
> > - Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format
> >
> > When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that
> > hidusb.sys
> > and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys files
> > aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.
> >
> > I would appreciate any and all help.
>
> It's a BIOS issue and depends on the external drive. I have that effect in
> XP (in a dual boot with Vista though the effect was there before Vista was
> installed), where one external drive causes a delay and two others don't.
> None of the drives causes any delay in booting Vista.
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
>

Rock,
Thanks for the input.

Why would a BIOS-related issue behave differently in XP vs. Vista? I would
think that such a thing would be OS-independent. (Yours has the effect in XP
and not Vista, while mine shows the delay in Vista but not XP.)

My BIOS is the most recent release for my motherboard, and since my
motherboard is older, I don't expect that there will be any new BIOS releases
made. Is this the kind of thing I can ever expect a fix for in Vista?

Thanks,
Casey

Rock · External Since: Feb 10, 2007 Posts: 2069

"Casey" <Casey.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote

> "Rock" wrote:
>
>> "Casey" <Casey.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
>> > Hi,
>> > If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected when I boot
>> > Vista,
>> > it
>> > takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone have an idea
>> > what's
>> > going on with the drive during the startup process?
>> >
>> > Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from the green
>> > progress
>> > bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.
>> >
>> > Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black for a few
>> > minutes
>> > after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can hear disk
>> > activity
>> > on
>> > the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it. Vista then
>> > starts
>> > normally.
>> >
>> > I've tried the following, to no avail:
>> > - Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my internal hdd is
>> > listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
>> > - Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
>> > - Disabling indexing on the drive
>> > - Disabling readyboost and some other services
>> > - Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete format
>> >
>> > When booting with the usb connected, I see in the ntblog.txt that
>> > hidusb.sys
>> > and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected, those two .sys
>> > files
>> > aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.
>> >
>> > I would appreciate any and all help.
>>
>> It's a BIOS issue and depends on the external drive. I have that effect
>> in
>> XP (in a dual boot with Vista though the effect was there before Vista
>> was
>> installed), where one external drive causes a delay and two others don't.
>> None of the drives causes any delay in booting Vista.
>>
>> --
>> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
>>
>
> Rock,
> Thanks for the input.
>
> Why would a BIOS-related issue behave differently in XP vs. Vista? I
> would
> think that such a thing would be OS-independent. (Yours has the effect in
> XP
> and not Vista, while mine shows the delay in Vista but not XP.)
>
> My BIOS is the most recent release for my motherboard, and since my
> motherboard is older, I don't expect that there will be any new BIOS
> releases
> made. Is this the kind of thing I can ever expect a fix for in Vista?

No, I wouldn't think so.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

Bill · External Since: Apr 03, 2007 Posts: 1

I am seeing the same slow boot problem as Casey. The machine is dual
boot with XP PRO and VISTA ULTIMATE. No problem on XP. With the WD
external drive plugged in during boot on VISTA, it takes ’forever’.

Machine is an HP1350N.

Update: Did some crude timings

XP boot with USB drive adds 5 seconds
VISTA boot with USB drive adds 34 seconds

Just so happens these times are also the same amount of time it takes
for each system to recognize the drive when plugged on a running
system.

"Rock" wrote:
> "Casey" <Casey DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
>
> > "Rock" wrote:
> >
> >> "Casey" <Casey DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> >> > Hi,
> >> > If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected
> when I boot
> >> > Vista,
> >> > it
> >> > takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone
> have an idea
> >> > what's
> >> > going on with the drive during the startup process?
> >> >
> >> > Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from
> the green
> >> > progress
> >> > bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.
> >> >
> >> > Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black
> for a few
> >> > minutes
> >> > after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can
> hear disk
> >> > activity
> >> > on
> >> > the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it.
> Vista then
> >> > starts
> >> > normally.
> >> >
> >> > I've tried the following, to no avail:
> >> > - Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my
> internal hdd is
> >> > listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
> >> > - Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
> >> > - Disabling indexing on the drive
> >> > - Disabling readyboost and some other services
> >> > - Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete
> format
> >> >
> >> > When booting with the usb connected, I see in the
> ntblog.txt that
> >> > hidusb.sys
> >> > and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected,
> those two .sys
> >> > files
> >> > aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.
> >> >
> >> > I would appreciate any and all help.
> >>
> >> It's a BIOS issue and depends on the external drive. I
> have that effect
> >> in
> >> XP (in a dual boot with Vista though the effect was there
> before Vista
> >> was
> >> installed), where one external drive causes a delay and two
> others don't.
> >> None of the drives causes any delay in booting Vista.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
> >>
> >
> > Rock,
> > Thanks for the input.
> >
> > Why would a BIOS-related issue behave differently in XP vs.
> Vista? I
> > would
> > think that such a thing would be OS-independent. (Yours has
> the effect in
> > XP
> > and not Vista, while mine shows the delay in Vista but not
> XP.)
> >
> > My BIOS is the most recent release for my motherboard, and
> since my
> > motherboard is older, I don't expect that there will be any
> new BIOS
> > releases
> > made. Is this the kind of thing I can ever expect a fix for
> in Vista?
>
> No, I wouldn't think so.
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

--
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Articles individually verified to usenet standards. Visit URL to contact author/report abuse
Thread archive: http://www.WinForumz.com/vista/Vista-slow-boot-USB-external-drive-ftop...20614.h

Rock · External Since: Feb 10, 2007 Posts: 2069

"Bill" <none DeleteThis @000.com> wrote
>I am seeing the same slow boot problem as Casey. The machine is dual
> boot with XP PRO and VISTA ULTIMATE. No problem on XP. With the WD
> external drive plugged in during boot on VISTA, it takes 'forever'.
>
> Machine is an HP1350N.
>
> Update: Did some crude timings
>
> XP boot with USB drive adds 5 seconds
> VISTA boot with USB drive adds 34 seconds
>
> Just so happens these times are also the same amount of time it takes
> for each system to recognize the drive when plugged on a running
> system.

> "Rock" wrote:
> > "Casey" <Casey DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> >
> > > "Rock" wrote:
> > >
> > >> "Casey" <Casey DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> > >> > Hi,
> > >> > If my Western Digital MyBook 250 GB drive is connected
> > when I boot
> > >> > Vista,
> > >> > it
> > >> > takes ~3 minutes longer to boot than normal. Does anyone
> > have an idea
> > >> > what's
> > >> > going on with the drive during the startup process?
> > >> >
> > >> > Booting without it connected, startup moves quickly from
> > the green
> > >> > progress
> > >> > bar screen to the windows "orb" screen, and so on.
> > >> >
> > >> > Booting with the drive connected, the screen goes black
> > for a few
> > >> > minutes
> > >> > after the green progress bar screen disappears. I can
> > hear disk
> > >> > activity
> > >> > on
> > >> > the drive, but I don't know what Vista is doing with it.
> > Vista then
> > >> > starts
> > >> > normally.
> > >> >
> > >> > I've tried the following, to no avail:
> > >> > - Changing the boot order in my BIOS such that only my
> > internal hdd is
> > >> > listed and booting from other devices is disabled.
> > >> > - Turning on/off legacy USB 1.1 support
> > >> > - Disabling indexing on the drive
> > >> > - Disabling readyboost and some other services
> > >> > - Deleting the drive's partition and doing a complete
> > format
> > >> >
> > >> > When booting with the usb connected, I see in the
> > ntblog.txt that
> > >> > hidusb.sys
> > >> > and mouhid.sys are loaded. Without the usb connected,
> > those two .sys
> > >> > files
> > >> > aren't loaded, but cdfs.sys is.
> > >> >
> > >> > I would appreciate any and all help.
> > >>
> > >> It's a BIOS issue and depends on the external drive. I
> > have that effect
> > >> in
> > >> XP (in a dual boot with Vista though the effect was there
> > before Vista
> > >> was
> > >> installed), where one external drive causes a delay and two
> > others don't.
> > >> None of the drives causes any delay in booting Vista.
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
> > >>
> > >
> > > Rock,
> > > Thanks for the input.
> > >
> > > Why would a BIOS-related issue behave differently in XP vs.
> > Vista? I
> > > would
> > > think that such a thing would be OS-independent. (Yours has
> > the effect in
> > > XP
> > > and not Vista, while mine shows the delay in Vista but not
> > XP.)
> > >
> > > My BIOS is the most recent release for my motherboard, and
> > since my
> > > motherboard is older, I don't expect that there will be any
> > new BIOS
> > > releases
> > > made. Is this the kind of thing I can ever expect a fix for
> > in Vista?
> >
> > No, I wouldn't think so.

In this system the delay only occurs in XP, and it's about the same as you
see, 30 seconds. Also of two USB drives only one delays the XP boot. It
doesn't matter what the BIOS settings are set to re legacy USB.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

yohojones · Joined: May 12, 2007 Posts: 4

I'm having the same problem... WD My Book Essential... 250.

I have a My Book Premium connected through firewire and there is no problem.

With the Essential on it takes twice as long to boot as with it off.

mujarrad · Joined: May 29, 2007 Posts: 1

How do you install windows vista in a usb harddrive?

yohojones · Joined: May 12, 2007 Posts: 4

I'm not sure... But I have it installed on an internal Sata drive and it's booting slowly. Sorry if wasn't clear.

yohojones · Joined: May 12, 2007 Posts: 4

Just installed Vista 64bit and same problem with slow boot up times when drive is powered on.

I never had this problem in xp. This is the only forum I've even found the problem mentioned on. Anyone have any ideas?

acepero · Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 2

I have a My Book 320 and I have the same exact problem with vista 64-bit. I know more or less what the problem is but I have no real solution. The my books support boot from usb device for portable os's, which Vista does not support. If your motherboard supports this it will list the My Book as a boot up device and that's where Vista hangs. It scans it thinking it is a boot up device but since My Book comes as Fat32 by default and Vista requires NTFS it just hangs. I can't disable this feature in my mobo (look for "boot from usb device" and disable it). WD has no work around as of yet. I have an older WD external dual option drive that does not affect the Vista boot up because it does not support boot from usb. As of right now I have to shut of the drive when restarting the pc and turn it back on when Vista is up (the only solution Western Digital's tech department offered...). I tried switching it to a usb pci card instead of the onboard usb slots to see if the mobo would not see it right away and that seems to work but Vista still takes a bit longer to load than when the drive isn't connected at all...

What I will try is formatting my My Book as NTFS to see if that resolves the issue. If not, then bye bye for that drive...

yohojones · Joined: May 12, 2007 Posts: 4

I have mine formatted as ntfs. They need to get their stuff together over at WD for vista. I still have no driver for my premium my book for the front button. Have a nasty unknown device in myu device manager. It still works but it's just annoying.

shieldo · Joined: Jun 29, 2007 Posts: 1

I'm having exactly the same problem with a 250GB My Book and Vista.

As a work around does anyone know if the My Book autorun feature can be diabled?

Would be easier than switching the drive off during boot up or disconnecting it.

Thanks

acepero · Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 2

Well, I have Vista and I connected the My Book to a pci-USB expansion card instead of the onboard USB slots and it no longer shows up in my bios as an available boot-up device and now everything works fine. No longer hangs Vista during boot up and only takes about 20 seconds to load into windows. Definitely had to be a bios related issue for motherboards made pre-Vista. Something with bootable USB devices does not work properly.

dpant · Joined: Feb 04, 2008 Posts: 1

Hi all. I understand this is a very old thread and I am not expecting much but I am desperate.

I have the exact same issue with Vista and WD MyBook 250GB Essential. I do not think that this is a BIOS problem since the black screen delay happens after the Windows bootup screen, which means that the system has already started booting up from the internal hdd.

Did anyone find a solution? Is there something we can do about it?

Please help.

Rackers · Joined: Feb 10, 2008 Posts: 1

I also have this issue, does anybody have a work around for it?