XP very slow to load on dual boot

JohnLocke · 07-12-2008, 12:28 AM

"very slow" is a relative term, of course, but here's what's going on:

I have 2 200Gb SATA disks in this machine and I gave 25Gb to XP to do an install (first).

Once I got XP up and running happily, with boot times around 7-10 seconds or so, I moved over to installing Fedora C9. I also gave it 25Gb, plus a 2Gb swap (I have 4Gb of RAM). Don't think it matters, but I also created two "shared" vfat partitions ... one of 250Gb and one of 300Gb.

Once I got Fedora running (with Grub as the boot loader), I tested both out. Win XP now takes about 30 seconds to load ...

I've seen a post in here about windows losing it's mind for a bit when it notices the linux partition or that it might not be on the cylinder head or something.

How do I fix that? How do I get windows to ignore the linux partition entirely (as well as the swap partition), and/or should I also try to move the partition slightly so it sits /on/ a head?

biophysics · 07-12-2008, 05:55 AM

The problem is, I think, due to the large fat32 partitions. try reformatting them to ntfs (you can do that easily in XP). And try using the ntfs-3g driver in linux.

JohnLocke · 07-12-2008, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by biophysics

The problem is, I think, due to the large fat32 partitions. try reformatting them to ntfs (you can do that easily in XP). And try using the ntfs-3g driver in linux.

Hey Bio ... I could certainly do that. Is there an issue with read/write into NTFS from Linux, though? Speed or anything else?

I plan to use those two drives to house most of my information from both systems.

If I hear back quick enough, it might actually get done!

(working on more specifics today of the system)

simonapnic · 07-12-2008, 10:15 AM

For writing to a NTFS partition you'll need the ntfs-3g driver.
Here's their official page: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
I don't think there are any issues with it, as I've been using it for a while and it seems to work flawlessly in a dual-boot setup (Windows XP + Debian Etch).
Latest kernels have write support for NTFS I think by default by now (2.6.20+), but I'd still use NTFS-3G.

JohnLocke · 07-12-2008, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by simonapnic

For writing to a NTFS partition you'll need the ntfs-3g driver.
Here's their official page: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
I don't think there are any issues with it, as I've been using it for a while and it seems to work flawlessly in a dual-boot setup (Windows XP + Debian Etch).
Latest kernels have write support for NTFS I think by default by now (2.6.20+), but I'd still use NTFS-3G.

Interesting ... I've got ntfs-3g installed (looks like it came with FC9), but the partition I have is mounted as type "fuseblk" ... not sure what that one is, though it was done through the ntfs-configure GUI.

It gives me full read-write, but here's the crux:

Is it as stable and as fast as the vfat partition / drivers? I'll be using it for most of my file storage and for games and such in both linux and windows, so I'm curious.

JohnLocke · 07-12-2008, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

Interesting ... I've got ntfs-3g installed (looks like it came with FC9), but the partition I have is mounted as type "fuseblk" ... not sure what that one is, though it was done through the ntfs-configure GUI.

Guess that's just a part of the way NTFS works now (sorry, it's been a while since I used it), so that's no big deal.

Big question is still stability and read/write speed.

JohnLocke · 07-12-2008, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by simonapnic

For writing to a NTFS partition you'll need the ntfs-3g driver.
Here's their official page: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
I don't think there are any issues with it, as I've been using it for a while and it seems to work flawlessly in a dual-boot setup (Windows XP + Debian Etch).
Latest kernels have write support for NTFS I think by default by now (2.6.20+), but I'd still use NTFS-3G.

That hasn't done the trick ...

I've got both drives now formatted as NTFS, and they load fine and work in linux just great, but windows still takes nearly 45 seconds to load now.

That's not /completely/ unbearable, but it's pretty ridiculous when it's up from 7 seconds.

resetreset · 07-14-2008, 08:16 AM

I think Win does a check of some kind of ALL disks it can recognise when it boots. If my pendrive is plugged in, it starts running Scandisk or whatever FOR NO REASON. This is probably the reason for your delay.

JohnLocke · 07-14-2008, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by resetreset

I think Win does a check of some kind of ALL disks it can recognise when it boots. If my pendrive is plugged in, it starts running Scandisk or whatever FOR NO REASON. This is probably the reason for your delay.

Well, having windows check the disk in /some/ way could certainly be part of the delay, but it's not running scan disk.

Even if it /is/ part of the delay, it's checking 3 NTFS partitions (should be as fast as it used to be), one 25Gb ext3 partition and one 4Gb swap partition ... not very big and I don't know how that's causing over a 40 second delay.

But any idea how to /fix/ it?

resetreset · 07-15-2008, 04:34 AM

You said "one of 250Gb and one of 300Gb" - that's big enough I think. Windows wouldnt check your ext3 and swap, how could it?

JohnLocke · 07-15-2008, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by resetreset

You said "one of 250Gb and one of 300Gb" - that's big enough I think. Windows wouldnt check your ext3 and swap, how could it?

Big enough for what? Not sure what you mean.

Either way, those drives were there when it was /just/ a windows box and it booted in 5-7 seconds. As soon as I created the partitions for Linux (the ext3 and swap) and installed Linux and Grub, suddenly windows take 45-50 seconds to boot.

biophysics · 07-16-2008, 05:20 PM

can you post your
df -h
mount
cat /etc/fstab

Are you anyway mounting your ntfs partition in fedora ? Try disabling it.

JohnLocke · 07-16-2008, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by biophysics

can you post your
df -h
mount
cat /etc/fstab

Are you anyway mounting your ntfs partition in fedora ? Try disabling it.

Sure:

/c-drive is the windows main partition
/games and /system are the two large ntfs partitions that I share between windows and linux.

Yes, I'm mounting those NTFS partitions in linux because, well, that's part of the whole point of this box. I need to work sometimes in one environment and sometimes in the other and I need access to those files in both environments. I can try disabling the mount to see if fedora is setting some bit flag on those drives that's slowing windows down on boot, but I doubt it ... a second boot into windows (from windows) is just as slow as the first.

df -h:

Code:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2              25G  5.4G   18G  24% /
tmpfs                 2.0G  1.1M  2.0G   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb2             149G   29G  120G  20% /games
/dev/sda3             101G   22G   80G  22% /system
/dev/sda1              25G  5.7G   19G  24% /c-drive
gvfs-fuse-daemon       25G  5.4G   18G  24% /home/andymac/.gvfs

mount:

Code:

/dev/sda2 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sdb2 on /games type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sda3 on /system type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sda1 on /c-drive type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/andymac/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=andymac)

/etc/fstab

Code:

tmpfs   /dev/shm        tmpfs   defaults        0       0
devpts  /dev/pts        devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0       0
sysfs   /sys    sysfs   defaults        0       0
proc    /proc   proc    defaults        0       0
#Entry for /dev/sda2 :
UUID=2c356285-0a91-4c73-8585-434f8b497cca       /       ext3    defaults        1       1
#Entry for /dev/sdb2 :
UUID=5C7C8BC97C8B9C80   /games  ntfs-3g defaults,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,locale=en_US.UTF-8    0       0
#Entry for /dev/sda3 :
UUID=6674676474673649   /system ntfs-3g defaults,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,locale=en_US.UTF-8    0       0
#Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=CC683C26683C11A6   /c-drive        ntfs-3g defaults,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,locale=en_US.UTF-8    0       0
#Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=dcf350ed-1fc7-4133-955d-04562ad2c213       swap    swap    defaults        0       0

JohnLocke · 07-16-2008, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by biophysics

Are you anyway mounting your ntfs partition in fedora ? Try disabling it.

Yup, double checked. See above post for fstab, mount and df, but disabling the ntfs mountpoints in linux doesn't change the windows boot speed on the first, or even the second attempt (ie: disable mount points. Boot to linux to verify. Boot to windows (slow). Boot to windows (slow))