Windows 7 Long Boot Time

hi .. um i bought a lenovo y460 a few months ago .. it was working perfect until a few weeks ago ..

i started experiencing really long boot times ... sometimes even 5 - 10 minutes!!
so i decided to restore the OS to the original factory one ... i did so and it got better ... it would take about 1 minute to startup ... now it's started to get slow again ... not as slow as before .. but pretty slow .. and i havnt installed anything on it ... i have fragmented my hard disk .. when the "Starting Windows" note comes up on boot it takes ages for the 4 dots to come together and form the windows logo.
and im experiencing another problem, when i try to checkdisk (chkdsk) after the pc reboots it automatically cancels the disk check after 2 seconds (on the count down)

what should i do?
i think my hdd is working fine coz when it boots up it's as fast as it was the day i bought it

o and when i hibernate it takes wayyyyyyyy too long to resume windows but in sleep mode it turns on and unlocks windows instantly

please help ... i love my laptop[

 

Greetings, farzad.au.

Do you get the slow start time when booting into Safe Mode?

 

Since you are having issues running CHKDSK, my experience is the most likely suspects are either the hard drive or corrupted Windows files.

First, go to CONTROL PANEL>SYSTEM>DEVICE MANAGER. If you see a red "x" or yellow "?" by any item it means the driver for it is either missing or corrupted. If this is the case, go to Lenovo's support page and download/install any needed drivers.

In DEVICE MANAGER it should show what brand of hard drive is installed. Before you go to the next step be sure you have backed up all your data.

Go to the Major Geeks' download section and go to the Drive Utilities page. Download and install the drive mfr's testing suite for your brand (WD Data Lifeguard, Seagate SeaTools, etc.). Run a LONG/DEEP test on the drive. Full tests often uncover drive issues CHKDSK misses.

If the drive passes all tests without errors, it's likely parts of Windows are corrupted. Although you can troubleshoot this to death, the easiest solution is to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows.

If the long/deep/full (the name varies depending on the program) test reveals errors I would replace the drive even if it states it "repaired" the issues. Once a drive starts having errors it usually gets worse quickly.

If you replace the drive you'll have to do a fresh install of Windows and software. Do not attempt to copy or clone a corrupted drive; any corrupted files will copy as corrupted to the new drive.

Hope this helps you solve the problem.

 

yes .. it takes way too long to boot in safe mode

 

EDIT : it actually took about 3 - 4 minutes to be precise

 

well i dont have any devices with driver problems ... all of my drivers are installed from the lenovo website and up to date ... so thats that

my hard disk is a hitachi HTS5450... is this what u mean i should download?
IBM - Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

 

well i downloaded the hitachi drive fitness test .. but unfortunately it only works on x86 OSes and mine is Windows 7 64 bit ... and they still haven't released a 64bit version .. what should i do ? should i use SeaTools ?

 

What A/V software are you running? Usually when Windows is taking a long time to boot into the GUI, that means that it is doing something. You can look in the logs, also look at Event Viewer in Administrative Tools, which will pull the logs, and also tell you if there is a problem. Doubtful that it is the drive.

 

SeaTools will work on non-Seagate drives; however it will be a read-only test. It will not repair other brands of HDDs.

This being said, I'd still run it. It can take up to 4 hours depending on the PC speed and HDD size. When running SeaTools Long DST test, be sure to disable any power saving features (sleep, hibernate, etc.) and - if running it on a notebook - run it on AC power only. Also, it's best to run it while not doing any other tasks on the PC.

Again, if the drive test shows issues, I'd replace the drive and do a fresh install of Windows.

Another free tool I'd download, install and run is Advanced System Care.

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=5927

ASC will check for any registry errors that could be causing issues.

 

im using Eset Smart Security ... actually i dont think my problem is my a/v coz im using the exact same version on my pc and it doesn't take this long

btw .. i just turned my laptop on and it took less than 20seconds to completely boot up (so why do i experience different boot up times every time i turn it on ??? )
i've been through event viewer alot and checked for my boot times .. i got a lot of criticals and warnings but they dont appear all the time

 

i did the S.M.A.R.T and Long DST test and my drive showed no errors at all ... it took quite a while coz its a 500gb hdd .. so can i trust seatools that my hdd is fine ?

i will try ASC and let u know the results ..

thanks by the way

 

When running ASC, here are a few other things to check after you've used it to scan your system:

In ASC's "Utilities" section, click on the "Administrative" tab and click on "Startup Manager". If you're not sure what something is leave it alone; however there are a few things you can disable on startup (you aren't removing the programs; you can always open any of these from the start menu if needed):

* MS-Office, Word, Excel or other office suite software.
* iTunes, Bonjour, QuickTime or other Apple software.
* Adobe Reader
* Toolbars or diagnostic "junkware" installed by the PC mfr.
* Any other programs that are not critical for basic system operation.

After you've scanned the system and disabled these items in startup, reboot the PC and see if or how much the boot time speeds up.

I've never used Eset security; however I have seen some anti virus/security programs that dramatically slow down boot times. If the above steps don't solve the issue, disable your Internet Wi-Fi (or unplug the network cable), go back into ASC>Utilities>Startup Manager and temporarily disable all Esat startup items and reboot. If this jump starts the boot time, I would consider uninstalling Esat and replacing it with a faster anti-virus such as AVG Free or Windows Defender to see if it helps.

If all else fails, I would do a fresh install of Windows from your restore disk. Something in the registry or a few Windows .dll files may be missing or corrupted; doing a fresh install is a lot faster and easier than spending hours trying to tweak the existing install back to health.

Sorry for putting you through the hard drive tests. Although these tests have sometimes caught boot issues for me in the past, at least you now know your drive is likely in good shape.

Good luck on solving the issue.

 

Was that from being asleep, or actually complete power off. When drives start going bad, you start to get errors that the MBR is failing, or start seeing multiple sector errors. Long boot times, as previously mentioned, means that the OS is doing some background task, such as chkdsk, A/V is doing a drive scan, or cleaning up the file table. Windows actually gets smarter each time that you boot, by looking at the most commonly used programs, and pre-loading them into the pagefile.

You could do a "clean" boot by using msconfig and troubleshoot that way. Doubtful as I have already stated, that it is your hard drive causing this. How long have you had this system, or running Windows 7 on it, if it was loaded with XP or Vista before.

 

it was from complete power off ...
umm ... no drive failures at all ..

yeah .. i've been through msconfig and my startup in customized in a very good way ... unnecessary programs and services have been removed

ive had this sytem for about 5 -6 months ... and it was loaded with windows 7 when i bought it

it seems like it's been working much better than the past few days .. i've been experiencing pretty fast boot ups .. like this morning i had a 40 second boot up .. dont know why it gets so slow some times ??!!

 

It depends on what maintenance that 7 has to do at the beginning. Think of it like cleaning your house. You clean up more when you have a party, but normally, you just make sure that you have no dirty dishes, clothes are picked up off the floor and in the laundry waiting to be cleaned, and lucky if something is dusted. It is kinda the same way that Windows 7 operates. It watches the pagefile, and file tables, and if needs be, checks drivers are compatible with the hardware if any changes where made to the system.

 

thank you very much for the good info
i did all the scans on asc .. and fixed all the problems ... my windows is booting up pretty fast ... approximately a minute ...
but i checked my event viewer and im still receiving alot of errors during startup .. why's that ?

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=152502&stc=1&d=1294122727

btw can i be sure that my hdd is fine ?

 

Since you ran the long drive tests (and assuming they did not find and/or repair any errors or bad sectors), it is very unlikely your drive is dying.

This being said, there is never a foolproof way to predict a hard drive failure. This is why you should set up an automatic backup of your data (either to another HDD or an online service such as Carbonite).

If you want an added layer of protection, purchase an additional Seagate brand drive that's the same capacity as your existing drive. With a Seagate, you can use download and use Seagate's Disc Wizard to clone the entire hard drive. In the event the original drive bites it, you simply swap boot drives - no reloading Windows or software.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

If you use Disc Wizard for cloning, disconnect the cloned drive once done. This will protect the contents in the event of a virus/malware attack. Just remember to still do data backups and to reclone the drive if you make major changes such as a Windows version upgrade.

 

thank you very much for the info .. i've already got all my data backed up on my external seagate hdd ... i've been experiencing 30second boot ups during the past few days ... so i guess it's been fixed

 

umm ... i told you that i cant run checkdisk ... when i checked my C drive with ASC's Disk Doctor it told me that my c drive had errors (it does a checkdisk) and that it had to continue after restarting windows .. so i restarted and i've still got the same problem ... it calls the checkdisk procedure.. it starts from 10 and goes to 9 and 8 and then it automatically cancels itself and says disk checking has been canceled . i dont even press anything and it gets canceled .. what should i do ?

 

Everything seems to be pointing to the hard drive, so you might have to bite the bullet - Newegg lists the Lenova drives at around $100-150.

Is the machine still working normally when not running disk checkers?

 

arghh .. damn thats way too much

yeah .. it works perfectly.. like super fast ... after it boots up nothing can stand in its way ... disk transfer rate is high ... everything is perfect ..

 

Then don't run disk checkers.

I agree about the high price for a new drive.

I don't know - if I were in your shoes, I'd run it 'til the cows come home. Back up any important data on a regular basis, don't run any super stressful disk intensive-type apps, and hold your breath.

 

lol... i guess ur right

i've already got all of my data backed up .. just got my fingers crossed .. i'll change the hdd as soon as i save some money