Windows 2000 Starts Slowly After Modifying SMART Drive Parameters (259545)

SYMPTOMS

Windows 2000 may spend between 1.5 and 4.5 seconds querying each drive at startup. You see the drive activity light during this time. This delay is most obvious on computers that have many drives; the boot sequence is delayed until each drive has been queried.

CAUSE

During startup, Windows 2000 attempts to determine if each drive supports Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) error reporting. If a drive supports SMART error reporting, Windows 2000 attempts to set the SMART method of reporting information exceptions (MRIE) to a specific value. Some hard disks (specifically, Seagate disks) take a long time to set these parameters (up to 4.5 seconds). This results in the delay during startup.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260910 How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

   Date        Time     Version        Size    File name
   -------------------------------------------------------
   06/23/2000  03:51pm  5.0.2195.2097  29,136  Disk.sys
   06/23/2000  03:55pm  5.0.2195.2097  71,440  Wmicore.dll

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 2.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about how to install Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 hotfixes at the same time, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

249149 Installing Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Hotfixes

SMART is a technology designed to report impending drive failure. More information about SMART is available at the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/manageability/smartdrv.htm