Real slow boot, then works fine....

About two weeks ago, my machine started to behave real strange: it boots normally, gets to the welcome screen (which it should't, cos there's only one account),plays the welcome music and takes 20 MINUTES (sic!) to get to the desktop. From there on, the machine works flawlessly.

I've tried everything you could imagine. Today I've been reading the posts around and have tried a couple of tips, but to no avail.

The only things I've have booting is zonealarm and F-prot antivirus (I uninstalled them for a while looking for the culprit). WXP pro is updated, have searched for virus, trojans and such. Have updated the bios in despair, played around with the services, installed a ton of tweaking / diagnosing programs to get the source, searched the web, but no results.
Ann MANY other things I can't even remember... :(

I'm at loss. ANY help appreciated.
TIA

===
Wxp pro
AMD XP 2400
ATI radeon 7000
80 GB
512 MB

Hi tomasbov, welcome to Virtual Dr :)

Go to the My Computer>Tools>Folder Options>View tab and select "Show hidden files and folders" and then uncheck "Hide protected operating system files". Then go to the root folder of the C:\ drive and find the boot.ini file. Open it up in Notepad and add " /sos /bootlog" without the quotes after " /fastdetect". That will show drivers as they are loaded and will create a boot log each time the machine is started called Ntbtlog.txt and which lives in the %Systemroot%\Windows folder. The boot log will almost certainly show where the hang is occurring. Post back with the results.

Do you think your antivirus software is scanning all files during bootup? I did this for a while, but noticed it increased the time it took for bootup. Perhaps this is what is causing the trouble?

I did the /sos /bootlog. What I 've discovered so far is I got a number of drivers that do not boot. I'm investigating still to see what's happening, but here is a list of them:

lbrtfdc.SYS Not found…
i2omgmt.SYS Not found…
Changer.SYS Not found…
PCIDump.SYS Not found…
I don't know what these are for obvius reasons

Cdaudio.SYS CD-ROM Audio Filter Driver
Maybe the cable from the unit to the sound card is not in place???
Little chance to hog the system for long...

Fdc.SYS Floppy Disk Controller Driver
Flpydisk.SYS Floppy Driver
Sfloppy.SYS SCSI Floppy Driver
There's not a floppy disk in the machine so It should NOT look for it. This is the primary suspect I think....

afd.sys Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock
rdbss.sys Redirected Drive Buffering SubSystem Driver
mrxsmb.sys Windows NT SMB Minirdr
NDProxy.SYS NDIS Proxy
The log tells these four load, but then it says they don't. So they appear twice... Anyhow, Don't see any connection to the problem yet...

And then I have a strange thing. Is a Zone alarm driver which loads, but then there are those question marks in the path.... (it's in spanish, in case you wonder)

Controlador cargado \??\C:\WINDOWS\System32\vsdatant.sys

Sorry for not being able to post earlier, but I have to work also :)
I'm trying to figure out which one of these is the problem, If you have any clue of what it could be, it would be greatly appreciated

BTW. I know it's not the Antivirus cos I uninstalled it for a while, and themachine kept having the problem... Thanks anyway...

TIA

tomasbov Here`s a solution to a similar problem

http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread/t-8368.html

Elaine

I tried to prevent the loading of the Floppy drivers.

In the Registry, in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Fdc
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Flpydisk
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Sfloppy

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Services\Fdc
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Services\Flpydisk
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Services\Sfloppy

Changed the key "Start" form “1” to “0”.
No results.

Does anyone know if these registry values are for booting device drivers? Cos I'm not sure...

If someone gets any ideas, they are all welcome...
TIA

Well, the situation right now is as folllows:

All of the above did not do anything to prevent the drivers from loading at boot. Installed the recovery console, but it appears I have a problem with the administrator account password. It won't reset even... Another problem...

So I was lended a copy of E.R.D. commdr 2002 and disabled the drivers. All of them. (The ones which are mentioned earlier). And that left me without a network and a still with a 20 min wait to logon. After some investigation I reset the NDproxy.sys and afd.sys. Now I have ntbtlog.txt telling me the ndproxy loads 2 times. Anyhow, I got the network back and the logon time unmodified.

I got the feeling that the whole problem comes from the login. In one of these reboots it prompted saying that the password for my only user (which has no password) is invalid. And the thing it boots to the welcome screen, when there's only one user. And it won't let me reset the administrator password through the E.R.D. locksmith...

Does anyone know of a way to reset the whole logon system or something????.

Thanks to all for your time...

Hi,
If you are at the Welcome screen and want to log on with "The Administrator" account, press Ctrl+Alt+Del twice to bring up the Windows 2000 logon window, which then allows you to log on as Administrator. You need to know your original password for this. If you did not set one just press "Enter" This should allow you to make changes to any Account such as password etc.

Logging on at the Welcome screen is not available on computers that are members of a network domain

Elaine

Thank you all for the help, but it could be no more. I just reinstalled over. The problem is no more.

hope not need you in a while... :)

You can take this thread as closed.