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I am trying to troubleshoot/fix a 30 minute boot time (i.e., the time between power being applied and the login screen appearing). All diagnostics (CPU, HDD, RAM) seem fine, so I simply suspect a bug in the interaction of Windows with hardware drivers/firmware.

The HDD bottlenecks almost every process on this computer so, to understand what is happening here, I wish I could get a log of all file accesses (just like the "Disk" tab in "Resource Monitor", but I want it before the system lets me do anything). My gut belief, though I really have no evidence, is that Windows is processing/rewriting some update files (or the full OS), because it sees some danger of a faulty boot corrupting everything.

I have looked at the "ntbtlog" file and many of Windows' logs/timestamps and everything indicates that drivers are all loaded quickly with Windows up and running within the first minute, but I simply can't track what causes the 30 minute delay...a time log of all file accesses with some rough byte counts would give me the bigger picture. Is there a way to get a log like this before login?

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  • Try instead MSCONFIG and curtail the number of items allowed to start. This will normally work better.
    – anon
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 16:52
  • @John I don't see why that would be better, I have to guess which services to stop out of hundreds. I have tried approaches like yours already (and am already using "selective startup") and couldn't figure it out.
    – bobuhito
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 16:56
  • @John One problem is that Windows Update cannot be stopped even when things say it is stopped.
    – bobuhito
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 16:57
  • I don't think you can list files pre boot. Perhaps at this point try a Windows 10 Repair Install from the Microsoft Media Creation Link.
    – anon
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 17:00
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    Just a wild guess - I once observed such a very similar effect when a certain USB stick was plugged in into the computer of a friend. Took us over an hour until we found out that simply pulling the stick out solved the issue.
    – Doc Brown
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 20:27

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