Everyone says to reinstall Windows for a slow boot, but I fixed one with a weird BIOS trick

Had a client bring in a desktop that took over 5 minutes to get to the login screen. Everyone at the shop said to just wipe it and start fresh, which is our usual fix. I was about to do that, but I got curious and went into the BIOS. I saw the boot order was fine, but the SATA controller mode was set to RAID for some reason, even though it was a single drive system with no RAID setup. I switched it to AHCI, saved, and the thing booted in 25 seconds flat. The client had never changed that setting, so I guess it came from the factory like that and just got worse over time. It saved me a couple hours of reinstalling and updating everything. Has anyone else seen a wrong SATA mode cause a slowdown that bad?

2 comments

2 Comments

maryblack21d ago

Yeah, switching from IDE to AHCI fixed a boot loop for me once.

grant74821d ago

Ever try a clean install?