Alter the BIOS settings to Boot the PC faster.

All system tests are not needed every time that you boot, and can be turned off to save time. Most system BIOS's offer a feature called quick boot. This feature will allow the user to turn off these test. Other BIOSs only allow you to turn off the memory check, which will still cut down on a lot of time.

To turn on the quick boot feature or turn off the memory check, just do the following:

1). Enter the system BIOS again by pressing F2 or the correct system setup Enter key
upon the POST screen.
2). Once you are in the BIOS setup, locate where it states Quick Book or Memory Check Navigate with the arrow keys until the option is highlighted.
3). Use the Change Value keys to cycle through the options and select enable for the quick boot feature or disable if your systems BIOS has the memory check feature.
4). Once you have made the change to the setting, exit the system BIOS by pressing the Escape key and make sure the save the changes upon exit.



Optimizing the Location of the Boot Files


The speed at which which your files are read is dependent on where files are located on your hard drive. Also, when a file is fragmented (which is when one file is scattered all over the disk), it takes more time to access that file than if all of the pieces of the files were side by side. Using tools that are available in Windows and other third-party utilities, you can defragment and place the Windows boot files on the disk where they will be accessed faster.

Windows XP has a new features called the prefetcher, which determines what files on the hard drive are used during the boot process and where they should be placed on the disk for optimal speed. Although this is not the only benefit that the prefetcher provides, it makes optimizing the location of the boot files easy.

Using Disk Defragmenter

Windows XP includes a boot defragmenter but it is a little tricky to get it to run. By default, it is run only in the background and cannot be started directly by a user. After your computer has been idle for some time between 5 and 30 minutes, the system will read the prefetcher's boot data and start defrag. The system defrag is run in the background and is invisible to the user. Eventually, if you leave your computer on long enough, it will be defragment the boot files

Microsoft has a very talented team working for them and they even took into consideration that often your system boot changes. For example, you might install an updated device driver or add new hardware. To solve this problem, the system will re-defragment the boot files every three days.

Tip:
Windows keeps track of the last time it optimized the boot file so that it can calculate how often it should run the boot defrag. If you are interesting in finding when the last time was that the boot defrag was run, open up regedit and navigate to: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Prefetcher" and then look for the key named "LastDiskLayoutTimeString".


Do the following to tell the system to start to process all idle tasks:

1). Click on the Start menu and select Run.
2). Type Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks in the text box and select OK.
3). Your computer will now begin working on the tasks.

Performing these steps will allow your system to defrag the boot files. However, since the boot defrag is done every three days. Processing the idle tasks more frequently that three day periods, will do nothing to help you boot because the boot defrag will not be on your idle tasks lists all the time.


Using Other Shareware Boot Defrag Programs

The built-in boot defragmenter is pretty darn good. However, there are a few things that other, third-party programs, feel that they do better. And in fact, there actually are a few applications such as Diskkeeper and O&O Defrag that actually do more in their boot defragmentation process.

During the boot-up process there are a lot of different things going on at once. Among others, Drivers are loaded, system files are loaded, settings are read from the system registry. The built-in boot defragmenter starts to lack in support when talking about the registry files, the file table records, and other system files. Just like any other system data files, the registry files can become fragmented with their daily use. In order to cut down on hard drive seek time for the registry and other system files, which can become quite large over time and more prone to fragmentation, it needs to be defragmented. This is where the third party applications begin to answer this problem.

Boot time system defrag with Diskeeper

In order to defragment system files, and other files that are normally in use, the degragmentation must be done during the early stages of the system boot. This will allow the defrag program to have full access to all files so that it can place them together on the disk. One of the programs that allow this to be done is called Diskeeper which is developed by Executive Software. A shareware copy of Diskeeper can be found on Executive Software's web site. If you have not already installed Diskeeper, please do so now before proceeding any further.

Do the followingr to run a boot time defrag:

1). Before you can run a boot time defrag there needs to be continuous free space on your drive. To accomplish this, simply run a normal online defrag through the Diskeeper utility.
2). After you have completed the online defrag. Click on the Action menu bar item, expand Change Your Settings and select Boot-Time Defragmentation.

3). Once a new windows pops up, you will have the option to select the drive as well several other defrag options. Make sure that you check: Put all folders together on volume, Run the system CHKDSK utility, Defragment the paging file, and Defragment the MFT (Master File Table).
4). Once you have set the correct options and made sure that you selected On Next Manual Reboot, reboot your computer when you are ready for the defrag.

Boot Time Defrag with O&O Defrag

Just as with Diskeeper, with O&O Defrag there is boot-time defragmentation option. This allows the system files that are in use to be defragmented as well as other special files such as the master file table. O&O Defrag is developed by O&O Software and uses different defragmentation algorithms than the Diskeeper program. I have included a section on this program as well to give you a chance to try both programs and find the program that find works better for your system. A shareware copy of O&O Defrag can be found on O&O Software's Web site.

Do the following to start a boot-time defrag in O&O Defrag:

1). Launch the O&O defrag application and select Add Job from the Jobs menu bar item.
2). Once you are in the Edit Job window, click on the Volumes tab.
3). Next, click on the drive letter of the drive you wish to defragment and the drive that your boot files are located on. Most likely this is your C: drive.
4). Select the Defragmentation Method for the Selected Volume you want to defragment. It is recommended that you select COMPLETE/Access for this defragmentation.
5). Once you have selected the method, make sure the check the box for Activate BootTime Defragmentation and then click the Set button.
6). Next, click on the Time Plan tab and select when you would like the job to be run. You can also set up the job to be run on a weekly schedule by selecting weekly in the Frequency drop-down box.
7). Click the OK button and you will see the job appear under the job list window. You are now finished setting up O&O defrag and your system will be defragmented at the time you scheduled the program to execute.