XP - Did Not Load Driver - Slow Boot and More

[JonGroves]

Did not load driver... Did not load driver.... Did not load driver.... I'M SICK OF IT!!! Here's the story: I'm running XP/Service Pack 3 - Things were running mildly quirky, so I decided to re-install Windows... No big deal, I booted up from the Windows Disk and ran the 'repair windows' program... OK, so far so good... BUT, after completing the install, it took over 90 seconds to boot! - So, I booted again... same thing. And again... same thing... and again. It was predictable. Over a minute-and-a-half staring at a silent, black screen waiting for the little cursor arrow to finally appear? -That's rediculous, right? - Never did that before. So I began tweaking this and that... checked for viruses, defragged, removed registry errors, ran msconfig, tweaked the timing....nothing helped.... So, I generated a bootlog and found 693 lines that started with the 4 words: "Did not load driver" !!! - That's right... SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY THREE TIMES!!! I'm sick of it. - BUT, (now get this) Device Manager tells me that all my drivers are properly installed and working correctly. SO WHAT THE f IS GOING ON HERE?? - I found an on-line hint telling me to defrag my boot sector by typing "Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks" in START/RUN... so I did. Well... it sped things up quite nicely; reduced my start up speed to about 18 seconds... that's tolerable; in fact I thought I had the problem licked... but when I ran another BOOTLOG, I found hundreds and hundreds of the same driver load errors! - So, now all I have is a machine that processes the same number of errors in a faster amount of time.

My question is... "HOW CAN I GENERATE A CLEAN BOOT LOG, FREE OF THESE ERRORS?"

Oh, and please don't tell me to reinstall every driver manually... I have tried that several times... It doesn't change the information being sent to boot.ini... AND, like I said before... All the devices work perfectly and show no errors in Device Manager.

Help????

[E'stien]

An 18 second start up? That's really good for XP!! I'm guessing you are not counting the DOS/DIOS initiation, because PC's require at least 18 seconds to get to the Blue Windows Splash Screen with the fill bar.

Anyway, I think I can help you clean up your bootlog problem. I'll be asking you to run 2 different Registry Cleaners followed by a handy Rootkiller Utility. All 3 of these programs are trusted FREEWARE utilities and won't cost you a dime.

Programs needed: CCleaner by Piriform, COMODO Registry Cleaner by COMODO and TDSS RootKiller by Kaspersky Labs. Download them and get them ready to run.

Steps to take:
1. Run CCleaner in CLEANER mode - Make sure the following boxes are checked under [Advanced Settings] -Old Prefetch data, -IIS Log Files, -Hotfix Uninstallers then [Run Cleaner]

2. Stay in CCleaner and go to [REGISTRY] mode and make sure all the boxes are checked, then [Scan For Issues] ...wait... [Fix Selected]

3. Next, open COMODO Registry Cleaner program - [Scan My Registry]... wait... [Fix All Issues] including any -Unsafe Entries (you will have to check this box manually)

4. Now run the tdsskiller utility. It will run in a DOS window.

5. Rooboot your system, do an F8 interrupt - Select [Enable Boot Logging] - Continue start up

6. When XP is ready - Locate ntbtlog.txt file under C:/Windows - Open the file and be amazed! Your failed driver attempts will be greatly reduced. (You might have a couple remaining, but nothing to worry about)

Try it.

[JonGroves]

E'stein, you're a genius! I followed your instructions to the "T" and my system is clean.

I already use CCleaner, so I am familiar with how to use it. I just made sure to check-box the extra settings you mentioned. Plus, I happened to have COMODO on my system too... Funny how each program found different types of registry errors. (I suppose that's why you wanted me to run both?) - I don't know anything about TDSS; but coming from Kaspersky, I assume they wrote this little utility to root out hard-to-find malaware. I downloaded it and ran it exacly like you said. Easy.

Bottom line is this: I walked-through your sequence of steps, and now my bootlog file shows a perfectly clean set-up! Actually, I did it twice - The results of the firt attempt were so impressive, (I went from 693 errors down to 4) - I was so excited, I did it again - Next time through produced perfect results! I don't know why I had to do it twice; but I'm not complaining.

Thanks, my friend! I love it when free advice works so well,

Jon

[E'stien]

Happy to assist. I am glad my simple instructions worked so well for you. (That's not always the case) I try to keep things simple and user friendly; because the web is filled with a lot of over-geeked, techno-heavy solutions to problems that don't always work. Which affirms the truism... "When all is said and done, there's a lot more said than done." But, I must commend the person who suggested you run the command "Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks" in START/RUN. That's a simple trick that forces PC's to perfom a few housekeeping chores. That command essentially cleaned up and 'defragged' your Boot Sector, helping you achieve maxiumum boot speed. Your computer would have eventually performed these chores on it's own, but only when it entered an Idle State, which would require you leave the machine on for an extended period. It's another reason for people to leave thier computers running all night; once in awhile. Those who don't, can keep things fine=tuned by running that line of code. It works.

Peace,
E'stien

[boergao]

The reason why your PC start slow is too many application are started at the beginning, maybe you can turn off some in the control panel, or there is an easy way, you just need a software to help you do this, try xxx, you will be surprised by its powerful function!!!