Excessive Hard Drive Reads On Boot Up

I am not sure if this is a malware problem or not. I suspect it is just a computer happily doing some intensive thing I've asked it to do. I have a slow booting PC (XP, with all service packs). I do not have unusual behavior other than this. I am running Windows Security Essentials, Spybot, and Ad-Aware - all are reporting that I am OK. I am behind a router. When I boot, I have heavy hard drive activity for 3-5 minutes. Process Hacker tells me it is mostly reads. Defragmented with no change. I would appreciate advice on how to test a hard drive, but I do not think this is the problem - I edit video on this PC, and once I am past this heavy read activity, my performance is fine. In sum, it appears like this PC is reading heavily on boot up because it wants to, and it is happy with the results once it is done. Except that I don't know why it's doing this.

Possibly a large number of utilities and applications loading from the Start Menu.

Let's have a look…

Please consider running this simple utility that will help you get control of programs and processes that you wish to have running active, or not.

CodeStuff-Starters
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/Starter.html

Download and install, agreeing to the licensing terms and allow to install with all of the default settings as preselected in the installation wizard.

When you finally allow CodeStuff-Starters to run
It will preselect StartUps Tab -

• Click on File
• Select - save as .Plain Text (name the report file - Startups June.txt

In your next reply, post the file as an attached file (use browse and upload buttons – at the bottom-right corner of your topic posting window where you are typing your next reply)

Please do not make any changes with Code-Stuff Starters, until after you post the requested information above and receive recommendations from a helper here.

Best Regards

I have an XP box that runs Comodo with Spybot and Ad-Aware. My boots are very similar and like you, have not had any issues. I've just attribute the matter as an older unit taking it's time to put on it's armor. Spybot and Ad-Aware both seem to take their time about loading. I just fire up the box, then go put the coffee on. Gives us both a little time to get started.

Doug has the right idea about checking your startup items. Your system is initializing services and other components, many of which are probably not needed. By providing the information requested we can take a look at those. Brother Bill makes another excellent point. In my opinion security products are some of the heavy hitters on performance, resources, and startup times. A selection of efficient and lightweight software is important. This is why I often choose performance over security. In my personal opinion, and this might catch flack from some, running Windows Security Essentials, Spybot, and Ad-Aware all realtime is excessive. Same thing goes with Comodo, Spybot, and Ad-Aware. Although personally, I would not run anything more than just my anti-virus product such as Windows Security Essentials realtime, for others I would at least not suggest running Spybot and Ad-Aware together real time. Both products can be useful, and many products can be used as a supplemental "on-demand" scan to help ensure integrity of your system. But, when it comes right down to it, the benefits of security products quickly become overshadowed by the burdens of running too many of them. Not to mention what I consider to be very annoying behaviors of these products like Spybot. I guess it can help some feel secure by being prompted 20 times before doing something, but for me it just annoys me very quickly and I'm looking for the shutdown option real quick. This is a bit off topic, but I have said in the past that you might get 90%, or probably better, protection with a single good anti-virus product, an extra 5% protection with a second anti-spyware product, and maybe 1%, for anything else you install. Meanwhile you never achieve 100% protection and your system runs slower and slower for an extra couple points of protection. The best protection is education. That is what will keep your system clean. Although, these products might not have anything to do with your slow startup times, but at least I feel better.

Doug - your file is attached. One thing I can tell you is the "mmtask" and "pp6100B" should both be removed from my startup routine. How should I remove these, when, as far as I knew, they were uninstalled? Brother Bill - you're set up is very similar to mine. I recently stopped using Comodo and McAfee, and switched to Security Essentials. It didn't make much difference to my boot time. AppleOddity - I totally agree, but I tend to follow the advice of people who understand the threats better than I do. FWIW: I'm an economist, and your point about the diminishing additional protection could have come right out of one of our textbooks.

Hello again DrTufte, All of the items listed (Except MSSE) in your particular startup folder are "user preference" and not essential for the function of your machine or operating system. If you wish to keep some/all, that is your choice. Otherwise, a google search of the item title or the actual file.name will help you know what associated process or application is being activated. My opinion, for what it's worth… Once most of those items have performed their initial preference and settings function during original installation… they no longer perform any useful task. I would not allow "any" of those items to run in StartUp on my own machines. (but that is my opinion/preference) All Startup items can be DISABLED by removing the checkmark/tick from in front of each item. CTFMON.exe and SpybotSD Tea Timer are special cases. If you need specific instructions for disabling either/both, let us know. Also, I will be interested in knowing if your load time improves after disabling various of those less-than-useful items. Best Regards

Great advice Doug. I would also go one step further and provide a list of services with CodeStuff Starter. Certain services are also know to cause problems and slowdowns. This would be a good second leg on a two pronged attack.

My own preference is to have the list exported as an HTML file rather than a .TXT file. You can then right-click the file and send to -> compressed zip folder. Upload the .zip file and we will be able to look at a nice clean list of services that isn't so hard on the eyes.

A look in event viewer (start -> run -> type eventvwr.msc and press ENTER) for any errors, especially in the SYSTEM log will also pinpoint performance problems sometimes. Scroll back until you see 2 or 3 EVENTLOG entries. This is typically where you rebooted or started up your machine. From that point forward look for errors, especially ones from the Service Control Manager. These are typically going to be significant startup and performance issues.

@ appleoddity –

Doug: I have unchecked some items. I am unclear on Starter - does it modify my registry if I uncheck something? If not, how does it disable these items - do I need to make Starter an autorun so that it intercepts the unchecked autoruns? AppleOddity: I have attached a list of services. I saved it as HTML, and I was blocked from uploading it. I tried saving that file as *.txt, and that too failed (perhaps it reads a little of the header). I reran Starter and saved as a TXT and it uploaded just fine. Sorry for your trouble.

DrTrufte, No you do not need to make CodeStuff Starters into an autorun utility. It is simply a third-party utility that gathers (and can act on) information similar to MSCONFIG (MS System Configuration Utility) When you make a change using CodeStuff Starters, it is "as if" you had made the same change using MSCONFIG. I just like to use CodeStuff Starters, because it is easier for Members to post reports, so that we can all see what is actually being worked on. Do you now have any improvement in boot time-line? ____________ I'm a little concerned because you are inquiring about setting utilities as autorun. This is "very rarely" if ever useful for the average computer user. "Launchy" is "cool" in that it allows you to utilize the keystroke alt-spacebar, and then enter the utility name you wish to activate. "If" you use it and like Launchy, then by all means go ahead and keep it. But in my admittedly limited experience, you will be the only user I know of who uses that utility. Maybe you can educate me about it?

I unchecked a couple of obvious things, and saw no improvement in boot time. I will be more aggressive and get back to you. I'm not an average user - more of an "accidental administrator". I'm not familiar with Starter, so I was really driving at whether something could start "in front of it". Launchy is an OK utility. I've gotten out of the habit of using it, probably to my detriment. If you type quickly, and switch programs a lot, it beats a button bar or other launcher. I found out that

Sorry … clicked "Add Reply" by mistake. Anyway, I found out how to DIY a button bar with shortcuts and an XP toolbar, and since I did that, I don't use Launchy as much. FWIW: DR are my initials, so you don't have to write it as DrTufte.

I use the "Quick Launch" feature of the Task Bar for applications and utilities that I use frequently. R-Click on any empty section of Task Bar, Click - Tool Bar - Select Quick Launch You can then populate your Quick launch via drag-and-drop the icon from the Desktop or as a short-cut. Once you have your desired program icons in Quick Launch, you can Delete any related icons from your Desktop to clean things up. Rather than being "selective" with disabling items in Start-up, using CodeStuff Starters… remove them "all" (except keep your MSSE) See if that makes any load difference for you. If there are any that you wish to have start at boot up time, you can replace the checkmark/tick to Enable it again. P.S. Thinking about cleaning up the Desktop Icons, reminds me that if you have large files saved to Desktop, that will slow boot considerably. (Things like installation routines that you downloaded and then installed) Once you've installed, you can delete. Or if you wish to keep the installation file, you can create a Folder named something like C:\My Downloaded Installation Files, and drag-drop them there to get them off your Desktop I keep a folder called C:\Tech Installs just for that purpose

I unchecked a bunch of stuff in Starter - without much change. I also disabled a program from Stardock called Fences. Again, not much change. I will look into large files on my desktop - that is definitely a bad habit of mine. Is it also a problem if there are folders on my desktop that contain large files?

I moved everything off my desktop except shortcuts and system files. Again, there was some improvement in boot time … but it's still slow. There's definitely been some reduction in the "franticness" of my hard drive activity on boot up, but the whole process is still slow. P.S. Doug - I gave up on the Quick Launch bar because it was always rearranging itself, and those lost seconds were bugging me (I have a lot of software with blue icons that can be difficult to tell apart, so I spaced them out on my own taskbar).