Computer start-up screen

You guys were a great help in killing my MS Messenger. I now ask for another favor.

Since putting in my new HD, the startup process seems to take over 2X as long as it did before. Maybe it's my imagination...but it does seem much longer.
I have a Dell and the Dell picture seems to stay on the screen for at least a minute while I hear nothing but the fan running. Is there some way to bypass the picture and get XP rolling more quickly?

-Jason

Is your system checking for HD errors and fixing them on startup? Mine does, so starting from a larger drive takes longer ... (I know, different OS, but it's a thought.)




P.S. "If you ate pasta and antipasta, would you still be hungry?" No, but you might explode ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

T

Try defragging your hard drive. It should help with everything, especially booting up.

Tom--no, it doesn't check for errors (not yet at least). It just sits there and does nothing for a while, then it goes into the startup mode.


-Jason

When it stops like that without accessing the HD, most of the time Windows is resolving a hardware conflict. It might still be looking for old hardware that was removed recently also. When I remove old hardware from a system I will boot in Safe Mode and remove all the old hardware that is reported in Device Manager. All hardware that still in Windows' registry will appear in Device Manager within Safe Mode.

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Saaby said:


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/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

When you say that the "Dell picture seems to stay on the screen for at least a minute", is this the boot up screen prior to the Windows XP startup screen?

The reason i ask is because i've worked with some Gateway, Compaq, and IBM computers and they usually display the company logo at bootup before displaying the windows splashscreen.

During normal operation, when you first turn on your computer, does it display the Dell splashscreen and THEN the Windows splashscreen? If this is the case then your computer is hanging up before the Windows software is even loaded. The computer will check hardware availablity, like memory, available hard-disks, mouse, keyboard, etc., before booting any OS. On IBM clone computers (the ones you make yourself), you can see this process take place on your screen, but on manufactured PCs like Dell and Compaq, they mask this process with a company splashscreen.

You said that you just installed a bigger harddrive. If it is hanging up at the Dell splashscreen it may be having trouble recognizing the new HD. The computer BIOS still might be set to recognize your original HD, and then when it sees that it's not there, it's probably trying to recognize it automatically.

Try to get into your BIOS and set your harddrive recognition to automatic. I'm not familiar with Dell, or any other company, but you can usually access your BIOS by hitting DELETE at startup (your DELL splashscreen).

I hope that wasn't too complicated, i tried to explain it the best that i could. It's been a while since i've opened up a computer.

I think Laurence is on the right track.

Try to get into your BIOS by pressing F2, F10, or Delete key while looking at the DELL screen.
Once there, see if your new hard drive has been entered correctly.
If you have an auto-detect feature you might want to use it to correctly identify the new hard drive and then enter that configuration manually.
After that you should turn the auto-detect "off".
Leavng it on tells it to search for a hard drive on every IDE channel and this just wastes time if you only have one.

Also look for a memory test feature.
On some computers the BIOS can be set to check every sector of RAM which also takes a lot of time.
Usually this is just done once after installing the RAM and doesn't need to be done at every boot.

I've played with the BIOS before visiting my favorite forum. It was set up for automatic and all the other things it was set at originally, but I've made some tweaks. Now we'll see if it works any better for next time I turn it off.

Thanks guys,
-Jason