cold boot startup problem

[Robertj]

I have Win Me and cel. 400 machine in our office. It runs fine
and can be restarted if a problem develops. BUT when I start it up in the morning or after it sits for about 15 min. or so it won't completely boot up! It stops at various places on the windows desktop. I tried disabling the startup items, however that didn't work. I have to reboot about 4 times and run scandisk a number of times before it completely boots up.

128 meg ram.

The hard drive is a maxtor 40 gig and is about 1 1/2 years old.
Could the hard drive be the problem or what???

Please help!

Thank You, Merry Christmas!

God Bless,

Robert

[Nuclear Krusader]

Looks like the HD is having problems.

Backup all your data now.

Also, don't try to save or retrieve data from dat HD during the first 15-20 minutes after boot. It needs to warm up, and you can lose such data if it's not properly warmed up.

[JetaJam]

Hello Robertj, I had the same HD with Windows ME, and had the same problem. As Nuclear Krusader said, back up all your data. The problem for me kept getting worse. Unfortunately I kept hoping I could fix the problem right up untill I lost all data and the HD stopped working. That was just my experience. It sounds like you might be in the early stages of Maxtor failure. Good luck and proceed with caution.

[Chris in U.K.]

Yup, I'd second (or should it be 'third') those opinions.

Clean out the rubbish, back up and defrag.

Don't let it get so bad as a colleague of mine once did that I couldn't back up her files to a zip disc - I had to physically remove the HDD and install it in another machine as a slave in order to copy off the user files.

Chris.

[GaryRouth]

Hi all

After you've finished your backups, here's the link to the Maxtor hard drive diagnostic program "Powermax". It creates a bootable floppy. You then start the computer from the floppy, and run the tests from DOS. It will give you thumbs up or down on the condition of the drive. http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Happy Holidays! ['tis the Season ]
. . . Gary

[p.s. ...the good news is that the 80gb dirves are on sale all over for less than you probably paid for the 40gb]

[Robertj]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Gary I ran the "Powermax" program thoroghly and it found No
problems with the drive. Maybe the drive reacts different when it's cold?

Please advise,

Thanks,

Robert

[Nuclear Krusader]

I would say so.

Try running the test at first boot in the morning.

[tacoeater]

i have seen a bad cd rom lug everything down to a snails pace.

[GaryRouth]

While the drive might be Ok, I wonder if some files are corrupt. Try booting to Safe Mode and running a ScanDisk "thorough": see if it finds some things to fix.

You could also try the SwissArmyKnife approach ("One Fix Fits All") of an over-the-top reinstall, since you've made backups already. With WinMe I believe you need to disable System Restore before the reinstall and re-enable it afterwards. http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...threadid=70846

Might want to test the memory out, too - since that can cause all sorts of odd behavior: http://www.simmtester.com

Interesting to see how this one comes out.
. . . Gary

[of course, since this is an office machine, if it's under warranty, you don't have to do anything! Dell, Gateway, IBM, or whoever get to have all the fun ]