Gray Progress Bar before XP boot screen

[~eskimo-nz]

Yeah thats what I was thinking. Maybe some conflict in the hardware (IRQ etc) but that really shouldnt be a problem nowadays. I also remember using that Boot program Microsoft released a while ago to optimize and analyze your boot process. It said that there was an "unknown" process which took ages, but I cant remember if it was after NTDLR or NTOSKRNL had loaded.

[John Veteran]

It's not a conflict! :p I don't know exactly what it is, but it's not a conflict...

I'm pretty sure it's scanning for hardware. For example, the /fastdetect switch in boot.ini prevents Windows from searching for hardware on serial and parallel ports. (link) Turn this switch off and I bet that loading bar takes longer...

[~eskimo-nz]

HHMM just looking around about this problem again and came across this Website

Although the guys solution was defraging his HDD but i guess everyone has tried that like me :)

Will keep you guys informed if anything on that page helps :)

Edited August 16, 2004 by ~eskimo-nz

[cub-x]

This bar is mos probably the bootloader

IOTW: the pre-loader for the kernel prior booting the OS

and since every machine is different, the processing it does, will vary in speeds

so, every machine has this, although not everyone will notice it..

anyways, it's nothing to worry about

[~eskimo-nz]

Yeah it's nothing really to worry about :) every computer does it, some just do it faster so you dont see the progress bar. I've had some success in making the bar go faster, I used a program called Registry Compactor to make my registry smaller because dureg.exe reported my system registry as being 40mb. Im guessing some (maybe all???) of the registry is being loaded into memory or something and 40mb justifies all the seeking it does during that time :) The bulk of my registry is made up of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001 and ControlSet002, when I export them they are ~4mb each, so I guess they would be ~8mb each in the registry itself maybe. However it is impossible to delete them as they contain the hardware profiles (I think) and ControlSet002 is a backup. However I would like to try and make them smaller :unsure: somehow without breaking my computer as its just a backup, and I never have to use the boot with last working configuration option :p

:D hehe dont mind me tho, I'm just going in random tangents and this probably has nothing to do with the grey progress bar, but any insight into it would be welcomed :)

[Joel]

How did Windows' normal operation become a "problem"?

[~eskimo-nz]

It's not really a problem, we pretty much all agree on that. For me, its something which can be tweaked to make my boot faster :blush:. It also does sound weird that so many people have this problem after upgrading to SP2 (I know a few that have this grey progress bar now). So I guess i'm just trying to figure out why it does it now, and along the way learn stuff about the boot process etc :p

[riahc3]

i have it sometimes as well mostly when my computer comes out of hibernation.

I could care less if its there visible or if it isnt...

[cub-x]

It's not really a problem, we pretty much all agree on that. For me, its something which can be tweaked to make my boot faster :blush:. It also does sound weird that so many people have this problem after upgrading to SP2 (I know a few that have this grey progress bar now). So I guess i'm just trying to figure out why it does it now, and along the way learn stuff about the boot process etc :p

Well, SP2 screwed up the prefetch functions in the kernel-loader, obviously due to newer files and physical disk locations.

It might be that the loader needs more time to find the required files.

MS was very proud of the self-optimizing prefetch methods of XP's bootsequence (during the XP announcements)

A guess; XP will optimize itself (to a certain degree ofcourse ;)) and the grey bar might be visible shorter with each boot

...

does that sound logical? if we could just take a look at the source :wacko:

[RU5H]

From time to time, when I upgrade Windows XP to SP2, I see a gray progress bar (like the one you see in Windows 2000), right before the actual Windows XP black boot screen.

I figured that maybe that's because the hard disk is heavily fragmented, so I used Diskeeper 8 to defrag the hard disk. After defragment, the gray progress bar now loads faster, but is still present before the actual XP boot screen.

Does anyone know how to get rid of the gray progress bar?

I was bugged with the same problem u had and i damn ****ed about it. haha.

Tried many things such as setting bios back to defaults, disabled/enabled some bios settings, installing bootvis (optimizing), defrag the hard disk, etc etc... but all to no avail. After few days of searching, which eventually led me to this forum, i finally found the solution.

Your hard disk (OS) has a boot sector issue/problem and the way to resolve is to do a Checkdisk (chkdsk.exe). You could do this by the command prompt (see tutorial here How to perform disk error checking in winXP or the easiest way is to:

1. Wait for ur PC to load/boot

2. Right-click at ur C:\

3. Choose Properties > Tools > Error Checking

4. Tick Automatically fix file system errors & Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors

5. a win msg will come up and saying that the following command could not be performed and will only be done when the system is restart. Click yes.

6. windows will then perform chkdsk and BAM, everything is OK back to normal.

[Angel Blue01]

I've seen it on systems with 256 MB of RAM, but only once or twice with more. XP with SP-2 is the only OS, so the precence or absense of service packs, old Windows XP drivers or the boot loader shouldn't be the cause. I figured it was drivers since it loads before safe mode always.

Rush, that isn't it, this is always present on some systems even after a CHKDSK has been run!

[RU5H]

@Angel Blue01:

imho, for some systems the grey bar could still be there but it shouldnt as slow as before. As for my pc, there is no more grey bar.. :laugh: Have a try first, make sure to use the repair/recover option or "chkdsk c:/r"