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From: marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: slow starter
Keywords: booting, hard disk
Message-ID: <1990Feb7.202324.22394@seri.gov>
Date: 7 Feb 90 20:23:24 GMT
References: <906@tuewsd.lso.win.tue.nl>
Sender: news@seri.gov (news [NO CHARGE])
Organization: Solar Energy Research Institute
Lines: 31

wsinpp@lso.win.tue.nl (Peter Peters) writes:

>Here's a question for the wizards.

>A while ago I built a hard disk into my pc-compatible (philips P3100).
>The disk is a seagate st138R controlled by an OMTI controller.
>When booting the system, especially when switching it on, its starts
>up slooooow (real slow i.e.). It seems to access the disk quite quick
>after (re)-boot then waits a while, after that starts to do what it's
>expected to do, i.e. starting to read stuff from disk and booting.

One of my users had this problem on a 40MB Compaq 386/16 (CDC drive).
I swapped the disk and the problem went away.  Half a year later, his
system would start to boot, then quit.  It had me stumped.  So I did
the usual thing of disemboweling the PC to see what happened.  I took
out all unnecessary cards and started the machine.  Worked fine.  All of
his slots had been full.  He had two 40 MB drives and two floppies.  I
put the boards back in and it wouldn't start.  With all boards in, I
unplugged one 40 MB drive.  Worked.  Hooked it back up - no workee.
Sounded like a weak power supply to me.  Swapped supplies with another
Compaq with fewer goodies.  They've both been working fine for months.
I suspect the original disk that was slow to start wasn't getting
enough power to spin it up to speed quickly.  It took about 15 seconds
to get started.

Don't know if this helps, but your symptoms sounded just like mine.
--
Marshall L. Buhl, Jr.                   EMAIL: marshall@wind55.seri.gov
Senior Computer Engineer                VOICE: (303)231-1014
Wind Research Branch                    1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO  80401-3393
Solar Energy Research Institute         Solar - safe energy for a healthy future