[Mountain_Man]

Alright I'm stumped. My Toshiba laptop booted the other day with NTLDR missing. I couldn't find my recovery disk, but was able to get an XP upgrade CD. It wouldn't except that for some reason, but I was able to load XP after first loading Windows 95. So, I installed XP up to SP3. Everything seems to be working okay, except when I boot the computer up. I timed it this morning and it took an hour! I could use some help here. Thanks.

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Hello Mountain_Man...

Right click on My Computer and choose "Properties". Click the "Hardware" tab and then the "Device Manager" button. Expand (click +) IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

Right click on the Primary IDE channel, choose "Properties", then click the "Advanced Settings" tab. List the Current Transfer Mode for each device shown for this channel.

Right click on the Secondary IDE channel, choose "Properties", then click the "Advanced Settings" tab. List the Current Transfer Mode for each device shown for this channel.

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hello Mountain_Man...

Right click on My Computer and choose "Properties". Click the "Hardware" tab and then the "Device Manager" button. Expand (click +) IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

Right click on the Primary IDE channel, choose "Properties", then click the "Advanced Settings" tab. List the Current Transfer Mode for each device shown for this channel.

Right click on the Secondary IDE channel, choose "Properties", then click the "Advanced Settings" tab. List the Current Transfer Mode for each device shown for this channel.

wannabe1

[Mountain_Man]

Primary IDE Channel
Device 0
Current Transfer Mode : PIO Mode

Device 1
Current Transfer Mode : Not Applicable

Secondary IDE Channel
Device 0
Current Transfer Mode : Ultra DMA Mode 2

Device 1
Current Transfer Mode : Not Applicable

[wannabe1]

Right click on Primary IDE channel and choose "Uninstall"...accept the change.

Reboot and Windows will reinstall the channel and any devices assigned to it...you will then be asked to restart your machine...do so.

Does this get things moving a little faster?

[Mountain_Man]

Well, it rebooted an hour later and ask me to restart again after it made the changes.....I did that and it's currently rebooting again. Looks like it's still taking an hour.

[wannabe1]

If it's still taking that long to boot...and after seeing it was set to Programmed Input/Output transfer mode, my guess is that you're looking at a HDD failure.

If you know the make of the drive, you can download the diagnostics for it from the manufacturer's website and see what that has to say.