Serial ATA Issue or by design? Perceived Lag.

betelgeuse™ · November 14th, 2004, 05:41 PM

I've purchased a new hard disk, 120GB Maxtor Serial ATA. I don't need more than 120GB.

But what happens is after the computer boots the BIOS recognises the Serial ATA drive, but this when it comes to booting Windows XP, there's a 10 second lag where the computer seems to do nothing. After this lag the HDD loads Windows XP (very quickly) and everything is good.

My question is: The lag between the BIOS detecting the HDD and actually me seeing the Windows XP splash screen - why is it take so long? Could it be that I've connected something badly? It's running on a Gigabyte i875 based mainboard with the latest BIOS.

--

Do I need to use any of these drivers while installing Windows XP or running it after install?

Gigabyte

FatalException · November 15th, 2004, 02:45 PM

This lag could be caused by a number of things. For instance, an add-on raid controller on the board may be searching for other drives on other channels. Some search methods take 10 or more seconds to complete - I know my old RAID card took about 20 seconds to search for drives on each boot before Promise fixed the problem with a card BIOS update.

My suggestion: make sure your SATA RAID controller is disabled in the BIOS settings and make sure Windows has the newest drivers for your SATA controller (available at the site you posted). Also, windows has a setting for how long it should "delay" before attempting to boot. While this is usually not changed by any programs, it may have somehow, through some miracle of fate, gotten changed. Go into your system control panel within Windows. Then click the advanced tab. Click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery. Then edit the startup file and see if there is anything OTHER than the standard 30 second delay listed there. As an example, I have included my startup file below. I hope this helps.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

betelgeuse™ · November 16th, 2004, 02:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FatalException

This lag could be caused by a number of things. For instance, an add-on raid controller on the board may be searching for other drives on other channels. Some search methods take 10 or more seconds to complete - I know my old RAID card took about 20 seconds to search for drives on each boot before Promise fixed the problem with a card BIOS update.

My suggestion: make sure your SATA RAID controller is disabled in the BIOS settings and make sure Windows has the newest drivers for your SATA controller (available at the site you posted). Also, windows has a setting for how long it should "delay" before attempting to boot. While this is usually not changed by any programs, it may have somehow, through some miracle of fate, gotten changed. Go into your system control panel within Windows. Then click the advanced tab. Click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery. Then edit the startup file and see if there is anything OTHER than the standard 30 second delay listed there. As an example, I have included my startup file below. I hope this helps.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Wow thanks for your help. It was "raid" being enabled in the bios. Silly me.

sechs · November 16th, 2004, 07:37 PM

PS: The timeout setting in the boot.ini has no meaning if there is only one boot option.