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VectorLinux > The nuts and bolts > Non-Linux Technical > slow boot?
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Author Topic: slow boot?  (Read 4649 times)
jessejazza
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Posts: 14
« on: July 29, 2013, 02:37:20 pm »
My spare machine; (Intel P4 2.6 ghz ram 1g) seems to take 50 secs to get to the grub boot loader.

I am trying to work out why it takes so long before I do a new VL installation. On older machines one used to have 'dip' switches but now ? I am thinking that there must be an incorrect setting or something somewhere but I don't know where to look.

I thought the HDD could be the problem but until the boot loader is initialised that can't be so. Dodgy memory?
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nightflier
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Posts: 3918
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2013, 02:51:42 am »
It could very well be the hard drive. The boot loader has to be read from disk and loaded into memory. I have seen failing drives that were slow to spin up and initialize. The system has to wait until the drive responds.

Can you boot a Live session from CD or USB stick?
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jessejazza
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« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2013, 04:49:47 pm »
Quote from: nightflier on July 30, 2013, 02:51:42 am
It could very well be the hard drive. The boot loader has to be read from disk and loaded into memory. I have seen failing drives that were slow to spin up and initialize. The system has to wait until the drive responds.

Can you boot a Live session from CD or USB stick?

Thanks - I am sure you are right I wasn't sure on the boot loader. I was thinking of changing the hard drive as I have several spare. The one that is in there is older than the machine and that could well be the reason then.

I can boot a live session but it is on my spare/test machine so there is no data of importance on there - which is why I assume you mentioned it.

If I learnt anything in the early days of using linux it was that one needs a spare machine to check out a new release and updates before putting on one's main desktop.
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nightflier
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« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2013, 05:08:53 am »
Quote from: jessejazza on July 30, 2013, 04:49:47 pm
I can boot a live session but it is on my spare/test machine so there is no data of importance on there - which is why I assume you mentioned it.

Partly so, but also for troubleshooting. If you can boot from a CD connected to the same controller, and it runs as expected, that verifies proper operation of the disk controller. From a live session you can also run diagnostics on the memory and hard drive. Also, don't overlook the data cable, those can go bad as well.

This is one of my favorite tools: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
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