long wait after connecting large external hard drive

[DavidToronto]

I have a large 2TB external hard drive that is not getting much use, because Windows 7 takes such a long time checking it out before mounting it. If it's connected when I start up the computer, Windows takes over 5 minutes to boot. Not nice. In fact, when this first started happening, I thought Windows was not loading and wasted lots of time and happiness trying to troubleshoot the problem. Other than the wait period, things seem to work OK, so maybe nothing is actually wrong, although because I haven't heard of this happening to other people, I'm a little uneasy about it. Maybe there's something I can do to get Windows to mount the big HD more quickly?

[JoeP517]

Long boot times with some USB devices are a fairly common issue with Windows 7. I've never seen a formal resolution though. What happens if you wait until the system is booted and then plug in the device?

Joe

[Roderunner]

Hi David, I have 1 Iomega HDD 360gb thats plugged in to my electric supply and took longer to load when switched on than my Freecom HDD 160gb did (its USB powered) so I stopped the large one from indexing, this helped slightly.

Attachment 28511

[dikbozo]

Do you really need this to be permanently attached? I would suggest unplugging it before boot and plugging it back afterwards. I would suggest the USB implementation of your system may be underpowered and\or overutilized, (i.e. powered speakers, keyboard, mouse, printer, etc.). You also might want to turn off Windows search as this runs when you add a new disk.

[bbearren]

In your system BIOS do you have USB set for its highest speed? As I recall, "Full Speed" is actually slower than "High Speed". Of course that phrasing may be different in your BIOS.