Adding SATA card causes Restart to take MUCH longer than Cold Boot!

I needed more drives on my home-built desktop, so I bought and added a 4-port internal PCI-e SATA-600 card and connected the SATA cables to a dumb (no interface) 4-port disk container. During the first boot, it took roughly 5 minutes for the card's firmware to identify the attached drives in AHCI mode, then the boot continued normally. But when I needed to restart, it took at least 15-20 minutes until I saw the Windows desktop! So I tried to make sure the driver was up to date, but then it was time to go to bed, so I shut the machine all the way down.


When I booted up the next day (a cold boot, obviously), there was virtually no wait for the SATA card to perform its function, so the total boot time was only about 3 or 4 minutes. So I wanted to see how long a warm boot/restart would take, and it was 15-20 mins again! So I tried both boot types again, and the pattern was the same: Cold = 4 mins, Warm = 15+ Note that without the SATA card, a warm boot is significantly faster than a cold boot (as it's supposed to be).


My machine doesn't have any RAID, so the BIOS is always set to AHCI. I have Fast Boot enabled as well to try to reduce the warm boot time. I'm running 64-bit Windows 10 Pro: Version 1909 (OS Build 18363.592) I'm going to wait to try to update to the latest version.


I boot from a Crucial 1 TB SSD using an MBR boot partition and one other partition. I have over-provisioning enabled using the Crucial Storage Manager. I use Chameleon Startup Manager Pro (which I love), and one feature is that it measures and displays how long each startup item takes. I see nothing unusual there.


What's going on, please? And what can I do about it?

Hi, clearly you are aware of the significance of fast startup with respect to a cold boot and restart.

To track the detail of what's happening on a restart, you would need to use the Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA) and Recorder (free from MS). This, using appropriate parameters, will let you see graphically the details of your boot sequence, and how time is spent.

This is a non-trivial tool - you can find examples of its use, parameters and screenshots in tenforums threads. Only 1 or 2 members are familiar with it.

Chameleon Startup Manager Pro

as far as I recall, only deals with startup items after the main boot sequence; what you will be interested in is how the drivers are loading, I think.

Hi, I'm no expert on that I'm afraid.. but maybe @zinou can help..

If you have a look for threads where the WPA is used - or see look for zinou's posts perhaps- you can see examples. Typical threads mention the tool and slow boot.

There you can see some suggested parameters, typical traces and discussion, and how to uploade such (large) traces.

And by way of a quick check, get a copy of Hard Disk Sentinel (excellent) - covers SSDs too- portable version available- sometimes even comments on cabling/connections. Result instant, right on its GUI.

Please confirm you're not using Optane.
Noted you say

My machine doesn't have any RAID

- yet your specs say you do.. is that a different PC?

Something isn't right.
A computer with a 4790K i7 on a ASUS Z97-A MB and with a SATA SSD should boot on less than 25 seconds. I know because I had a i5 on a ASUS Z97-A. It booted in 20s. In my case, Fast Start didn't make any difference.

If you disconnect all other drives (SATA or power cable) how long does it take to boot?

Agreed- my 8 year-old laptop with an i5, SSD, boots to lock screen in under 9s.

I boot from a Crucial 1 TB SSD using an MBR boot partition and one other partition

Please post a screenshot of your partitions uing a 3rd party partition manager.

And note I asked you to check disks with HD Sentinel. Thanks.

Complementing dalchina request:
Please post a whole window Disk Manager image of your drives. Don't forget to expand the columns so we can read them. How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management

If you have a MiniTool or AOMEI Partition use it instead or Windows disk manager.