Win 2k startup problem

lukin

I have to turn on my PC twice to get it to come on.
What happens is I press the 'on' button and then the two my CD-ROM drive and DVD-R drive start making noise, like they are being accessed by Windows or something.
The lights on them go on and off and it switches from one to the other.
I turn the PC off, (I have to hold the button down for a few seconds before it finally turns off) and then press the button again. It boots up O.K. then.
I have tried fiddling with the BIOS, switching the IDE cables to every possible different position, but nothing works.
(It turns off fine though.)
Any ideas?

BigEejit

this the dell pc that you were talking about in the other thread about ram? ... if it is you should get onto them ..
Has the puter being doing this from the start? ... could be bios

lukin

No, BigEejit, you've got me mixed up with someone else.
It hasn't been doing this since the I bought it, only since I reformatted the drive there recently 'cause of another problem

BigEejit

Oops ... sorry about that ....

If you didnt make any hardware changes or go fiddling in the bios and its doing this since you reformatted and re-installed ...I have to say I have no idea what could be the cause

Kali

Mines been doing that for the past year.. windows (both 98se & 2000server) just doesn't seem to want to shut it down properly.. I'm pretty sure it doesn't happen when i powerdown in linux tho.
I've trawled through a number of fixes on microsofts site, but nothings worked.. so I gave up and dealt with it

byte

I have probs with Win2k as well. Shutdown leaves me with "it's now safe to turn off your computer" instead of doing it automatically like it used to. I think my turning off ACPI caused this problem.

But at startup it takes ages to start. When 2k loads up, i get start menu and the bar alongside it with system tray but it takes another minute or so for the desktop shortcuts and icons to appear. DUnno why there is such a long delay.

sceptre

@ irishbyte

That'll be turning off ACPI, yeah.

wrt the second problem, mine takes as long - bloody ages. I've so many things on startup for convenience though (net timer, app for grabbing Yahoo mails for Outlook, firewall, antivirus etc) that it probably comes down to that in my case.

BigEejit

Sceptre Wrote
I've so many things on startup for convenience though (net timer, app for grabbing Yahoo mails for Outlook, firewall, antivirus etc) that it probably comes down to that in my case.

I'd say get a startup manager ... it will start each of those apps individually, with a user specified gap between them ...
Startup managers are usually free ... have a look on tucows or thefreesite..
It sped up my machine no end ... (or it makes me feel like it has sped up?? )

lukin

I'll look for a startup manager on tucows or downloads so, thanks lads.

lukin

I'll look for a startup manager on tucows or downloads so, thanks lads.