Windows 10: Super slow boot time and unrecognized HDD

So for about maybe 1 year maybe more my computer does this very random and very annoying thing where one of my HDD's does not show up in the bios and if I try to just boot in to windows it can take upwards of 5 minutes for it to finally bring me to login screen (I get stuck on the windows loading screen) I have my OS (Windows 10 Pro 10.0.17134) on a samsung ssd and 2 seagate 1TB HDD's. It is almost always the one specific HDD that stops being recognized however there has been one time where the other has stopped as well. I have tried the usual methods for fixing something like this, swapping SATA cables, SATA ports, I even re installed Windows and formated all drives to get it to stop doing it. I ran the hard drive health check thing from seagate on both drives both came up healthy. Generally it seems like pure chance as to whether or not the hard drive will come back and be recognized and I don't have to wait 5m for a boot on and SSD. I have yet to find any kind of pattern that could indicate what causes this although for some reason whenever my computer sustains some kind of "trauma" such as a power failure or one time I downloaded a software and clumsily gave myself a handful of virus / malware it seems to kaput out. Then finally for some reason it may come back, and I have to avoid shutting my computer down because I know when I reboot there is a likely chance i will lose my hard drive and it wont be recognized (and this is precisely what happened a couple days ago). I also just noticed I have a significant memory leak happening.

I have 8gb of ram installed, and somehow I am using 4gb of memory despite task manager displaying I am using nowhere near that amount. Could there be a link? I just reinstalled windows to try and fix the leak but it is still occuring. I truly have no clue what to do. Is it a windows problem, a bios problem, the fact that the drives will randomly come back and turn up healthy in tests leads me to believe it isn't the health of the drives. Even weirder is that if I unplug the Sata and power cables for the 2 HDD drives Windows still takes many minutes to load into despite being on an SSD I know works.


Thanks for any suggestions.

:)

 

Need help! Super slow boot time and HDD problem

The entire dilemma started a week ago when my 5 yrs old Seagate 7200.11 500GB crap out. I lost 90% of data. Good thing is my PC has 2 hdds. Second hdd is wd black 1.5tb which I bought in 2011 to expand storage.

So i went ahead and used my WD to install system. Things runs fine for 3 days. Until this morning my PC again refused to boot up like normal. It took almost 20 mins to boot up. HDD activity light was constantly on. But I cant hear the drive operating like usual. When it finally boot up. I couldn't access one of my volumes on the HDD. Used HDTunerPro and get a SMART warning of "Current Pending Sector" The value is 15. My system is super slow.

So my question is, how can both HDDs fail at about the same time? Or is it my power supply that is failing which caused the HDD problem?

For the SMART warning, should I RMA the drive? Is "Current Pending Sector Warning" fixable or unfixable?

Thanks guys!

 

Extreme slow boot time since eSATA HDD addition


Hi all,

My system uses a SSD drive and Fast Boot option in Windows (Hibernate = YES).
Also, my BIOS is set to Fast Boot option.

1. Usually, from cold boot it will log in within 8 seconds on average.
2. For a PC restart, it takes about 15~20 seconds to login. Pretty manageable.

It's worth noting that cold boot uses the hiber.sys file when fast boot option is enabled in windows.
This file is not being used for PC restart.

Since I added a HDD eSATA enclosure that can host two HDDs, I've experienced slow boot times.
With 1 HDD it would take about 20 seconds to login from PC restart, but with the additional 2nd HDD it got to about 60+ seconds to login.

Things I've done:

1. I've disabled some none windows, none crucial startup services to no avail.
2. My motherboard is quite old - Asus P8Z77-V-Deluxe.
   It uses Asmedia 106x SATA Controller. The eSata drivers for it are from 21/08/2017 version 3.2.3.0.
   I've installed this driver after I experienced the slow boot time in the hope to achieve better results, but it didn't improve anything.
3. Removed BitDefender to no avail. Installed back.
4. In group policy, I've enabled Windows Boot Performance Diagnostics but I've yet to gather meaningful data.
5. Lastly, disconnected the eSATA HDD enclosure - Windows boots in 8 seconds. Clearly this has to do with the eSATA connection or HDD's.

My questions are:

1. Is there a dedicated diagnostic tool for windows boot time that can point what's holding up to boot process?
2. Do you think it's better to use USB 3.0 instead of the eSATA to improve on the time? or is it the enclosure controller that holds windows boot time?

That's the eSATA HDD enclosure I'm using:
Vantec NexStar MX Dual 3.5 SATA to USB 3.0 and eSATA W/JBOD/RAID 0/1 Enclosure 690000346712 | eBay

 

Boot Times WTF

Excuse me if I suggest something already mentioned in the thread. I was having real slow boot times with my system. I unchecked NCQ for my hdd(s) in the device manager and it solved my problem.

Also, your ide primary/secondary, master slave settings correct?