Boot into Win PE is extremly slow.

The pc is a Lenovo that is about 2 1/2 years old and was ok from the beginning. About 1 1/2 year ago it started to be slow when booting into Win PE environment. When the bar "loading files" gets visiable it goes from left to right in snail pace, and does it twice! Not as it should, and did before this, once and fast. So restores are extremly slow.

The cpu is intel of 13:gen and fairly powerful which is the reason why i bought it, so i could get fast restores. So this slowness feels, well, sad. 1300USD down the drain so to speak.

Whatever backup program i use that loads into Win PE, behaves the same. So it must be the pc. The bios has been updated 3 times since it first occured, and i have fresh installed many times since then also. The problem still exists! I have also changed disk many times with same result, except once. That was when i installed the original disk and then the first restore executed as it should - fast, but after a short usage of the pc, it frooze a couple of times shortly after the restore, but then continued to work ok and still does. Then i decided to try a restore again since i got suspicious about those freezings because i could really feel that sometihng changed in the pc. And sure enough, the snail pace restores where back and has been ever since with ALL disks.

What i am about to try now is to reset the cmos battery by removing it and set it back after a minute or so. And that will be the last thing i know of that one can do to change the inner workings of a pc:s software.

Does anyone know how to fix this?
As far as my limited knowledge goes, this can not be a hardware issue - or can it?

Besides this, the pc works excellent.

 

pb1,

If you use an IFL boot disk, is that slow to load and is the restore slow?

 

Have not tried it so i do not know. If so, or not, what would that say, in each case?

 

It sounds like you have tried a variety of WinPE, including TBWinRE. I don't know why they are causing the problem. I would be interested to know if Linux loads slowly too.

 

Are you using UFDs? Do optical media work any better?

Are all USB ports affected?

 

Ok.

Well, the problems started at the same time while using IFW, i suspect. There where some occasions when i had uninstalled IFW but the restore gui still showed, also, even though i was using another backup program. So i had some problems with their restore environment on and off during a period. That is one of the reasons i do not use my license for IFW. But, this "problem" with IFW could be a coincidence. Since i have updated bios and reinstalled many times that seems far fetched.

Anyway, besides trying with IFL, do you see any other reason how something like this can happen? And if, it is a hardware issue, what could that be?

I am going to try the action with cmos battery today in the afternoon and see what happens.

 

Mostly boot menu, but sometimes UFD. Both behave the same. And all ports to.

Optical media??

 

Since it will not give any other answer, it seems, then that it works, i will not try it any soon.
It is Win PE i want fixed. Right now i am using HBS on that pc with boot menu.

The pc is a "build your own pc" ordered on Lenovo home site. Maybe that has something to do with it, even though all those pc:s contains regular hardware they use in many of their pc:s, only different mixes. They of course test if all mixes work, or do they. Hmm.

Searching the net for this problem draws a blank so it is unusual bordering to nonexistent.

 

Now i have tried everything, no change. Linux i will not try though it will not help the issue.

The real mystery is, why loading 2 times, what causes that?

 

As I mentioned in a post elsewhere, this may be a hardware issue. In the older Systems, of which yours is not I believe, BiOS support did not exist for USB3 speeds, only USB2. After WinPE was loaded at the slower USB2 speeds and started, the USB3 support in the WinPE took over and loaded the main included app, when started, at USB3 speeds.

Your test with removing the BiOS battery will, indeed, reset your BiOS to DEFAULTs. You should have the same option in the BiOS itself as most modern BiOSes offer that function (RESET) which should keep you from having to unpack that laptop to get to the BiOS battery.

 

Interesting, but i use HBS boot menu.

Any idèa of which hardware?

According to a video on the net, Lenovo, or at least this one, uses the usuall battery for cmos. So within the laptop, there was no cmos to see.
So the reset function within the bios also accounts for the cmos battery, good to know.

 

@pb1 - can you give us the actual model of that laptop in question... it may help us help you with the issue.. Thanx!

 

It matters not what BOOT menu you use... the System will use the BiOS to load the WIM referenced by the BOOT menu of any scheme. The same will happen when loading the WIM from a UFD or CD/DVD BOOT source.

 

Both the battery pull (short time disconnect) AND the BiOS RESET function should do exactly the same thing.

 

Another quick question would be... are you trying to use SECURE BOOT? If so, you could try your effort after turning off SECURE BOOT.

 

Another question... are you running a Legacy/MBR or UEFI/GPT configuration with your System?

 

IdeaPad Slim 5 16IRL8.

I have tried with and without Secure boot.

UEFI/GPT, as was default.


Now i am using my backup pc, Acer, with HBS and its boot menu, and it works as it should.

 

@ pb1
Have you tried changing to 'legacy' in bios and without secure boot.?

 

@pb1
Have you tried changing boot to 'legacy' in bios along with removing secure boot.
You could try turning off fast startup also know as Hiberboot, hybrid boot, or hybrid shutdown as that is not a real boot/reboot (as I understand it) and is a sort of virtual boot. That might be giving the loading 2 times, problem. Just some thoughts. I am no expert.

 

I have no tried legacy - yet. I will though, good idea. But everything, as said, worked ok in the beginning.

Fast start, secure boot and hiberfil is off/inactive.

 

Using legacy can not be done since the pc do not support it. It sounded good though.

 

Yes, It was just a thought.

I think that I've changed over to 'legacy' on some laptop drives and it gives a warning about 'Are you sure? computer. may not boot ' or something like that. Memory might not serve me well . It's an age thing.

 

@pb1, your laptop is fairly new and should be pretty fast from the listed specs of your model. The slow WinPE loading issue does not look like a UEFI/BIOS issue as BIOS has already done its job by this time and passed the handle over to WinPE. Your issue is most likely caused by a bad driver or a bad WinPE. You did not mention your OS? Is it Windows 10 or 11? Please update your drivers and then rebuild your WinPE on that particular laptop, so that the WinPE has all the drivers for that laptop. Choose the version of WinPE corresponding to the OS installed.

 

It is W 11.

I have done everything you mentioned, except one thing, create the boot menu anew after updating drivers. That i shall try asap.
Otherwise i have tried fresh install a then backup/restore with different backup programs, and the WinPE the programs download from Ms when they create the boot meny.

It is mostly Hasleo Backup Suite but also Aomei backuper that i have tried this functionality with.

A question, IF, this is a hardware issue, what hardware could it be?

 

@pb1, it is not a hardware issue, as in there is nothing wrong with your PC hardware, it is most probably an issue where the WinPE media cannot properly initialize one or more components of your hardware or cannot find appropriate drivers.

Here is what happens in the background when you see the WinPE progress bar. The WinPE get loaded into RAM and gets executed in RAM, hardware is initialized and drivers are loaded, the progress bar reaches its end, and then the imaging software loads. This step can be split in two parts depending on the manufacturer, for example in Macrium and Paragon, the progress bar only displays the time for the WinPE to load to the RAM, and then the imaging software loads, and the imaging software then initializes the hardware and loads drivers. I do not know how Hasleo does it as I have never used it.

So the way to fix this slow progress bar issue is by making sure your PC has updated drivers, especially motherboard drivers, and the WinPE media has been built with updated files and drivers. When you rebuilt the Hasleo WinPE, please make sure that you delete the existing WinPE files from your system, and re-download them again and build the media from scratch. Also if you are using a usb flash drive to boot WinPE, try changing to a different flash drive, or to a different usb port.

Hopefully this will resolve your issue.