Slow Boot After Changing Configuration

One of our company's IBM NetVista computers had a faulty CD-ROM drive. I replaced it with a new DVD-ROM drive and the start-up BIOS sequence started being very slow, up to 3-4 minutes, before booting from disk. Even then, after it starts booting Windows XP, in the middle of XP boot there's a delay of a couple of minutes during which there's nothing but a blank screen.

Once Windows XP starts up, everything is normal.

The user found this unacceptable, so we installed the old CD-ROM back (restoring previous configuration), but the problem is still there.

We even tried disconnecting the CD-ROM and the disks, and the BIOS boot sequence was still slow.

What do you think could be causing this?

From serverfault Dario

• Try setting the jumper on the DVD to "Master" if it is set to "Cable Select", and make sure the DVD is connected to the Master connector on the IDE cable. Perhaps you have an older type IDE cable which cannot do Cable Select.

  From JS

• Also, manually set the drives in the BIOS instead of letting it autoconfigure.

  From towo

• Can you explain what do you mean by - "We even tried disconnecting the CD-ROM and the disks, and the BIOS boot sequence was still slow.". Do you mean that even after disconnecting all drives CD as well as harddisk PC was slow?

  From Saurabh Barjatiya