Please Help: VERY slow boot with secondary HDD installed (A08 modded)

[haoster]

I just installed a secondary hdd today, followed the step here:

*Guide* How to install a secondary hard drive on your M14x w/ Pics!

I am also using the same hdd caddy (fenvi) used in the tutorial.

Everything worked very well except the boot time now is very very slow.

The system is installed in a vertex 4 ssd, normally without the secondary hdd, the boot time is about 5-10 seconds after seeing the windows flag.

Now with the secondary hdd plug in, it took about 3-5 minutes to desktop after seeing the windows flag.

the secondary hdd i am using is the one came with the laptop. I believe it is a western digital 750g black.

The bios I am using is the modded A08 bios (with A05 sata drivers). every setting is default. (Can be found here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienwa...-sata-fix.html

)

BTW, I have RST installed, SSD with latest firmware, and no system in the HDD.

Did anyone experience the same or similar problem?

[chmod1337]

Hi and welcome to T|I

Can you hear the second HDD spinning?

From what you describe, i suspect that Windows finds your second HDD and is trying to access (probably initialize) it. But for whatever reason this fails and Windows waits for a timeout befor it continues booting.

Maybe you want to check the cables again, you could habe damaged a cable or routed via a component that produces electromagnetic noise (unlikely). Also how does the HDD behave in other computers?

If you want to take a look at the boot process, xbootmgr from the Windows Performance Tools Kit found in the Windows 7 SDK can trace your boot and help you with diagnosis.

Here is a link to the microsoft page, you will have to follow some links until you find all the required information.

Windows Performance Analysis Tools

[haoster]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

The HDD worked perfect before putting the SSD in. It shouldnt be any problem with the HDD.

Some people on notebookreview suggested to put the hdd in stat 150 mode should solve the problem. However, I do not have the micro-jumper for 2.5" hdd, and es-tools wouldnt run on my pc.

Is there any other way to set the hdd in sata 150 mode?

Hi and welcome to T|I

Can you hear the second HDD spinning?

From what you describe, i suspect that Windows finds your second HDD and is trying to access (probably initialize) it. But for whatever reason this fails and Windows waits for a timeout befor it continues booting.

Maybe you want to check the cables again, you could habe damaged a cable or routed via a component that produces electromagnetic noise (unlikely). Also how does the HDD behave in other computers?

If you want to take a look at the boot process, xbootmgr from the Windows Performance Tools Kit found in the Windows 7 SDK can trace your boot and help you with diagnosis.

Here is a link to the microsoft page, you will have to follow some links until you find all the required information.

Windows Performance Analysis Tools

[chmod1337]

Well, a jumper is essentially nothing more than an electric bridge between two pins. I have seen pictures where the pins were connected with alumnium foil, but you have to be careful not to touch other pins. This is of course no permanent fix, but I am sure you can get such jumpers on ebay or dealextreme for a few dollars.

[Guest Alienware-Frank_L]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

The HDD worked perfect before putting the SSD in. It shouldnt be any problem with the HDD.

Some people on notebookreview suggested to put the hdd in stat 150 mode should solve the problem. However, I do not have the micro-jumper for 2.5" hdd, and es-tools wouldnt run on my pc.

Is there any other way to set the hdd in sata 150 mode?

Did it worked? Else, maybe you can even run (anyway) a test on the HDD. Try out HDTune, get the tool and run a benchmark test; after that you can post an image of the results here.