Here’s how to make Windows boot faster by ignoring external hard disk drives.
How Can an External HDD Slow Down the Windows Boot Process?
You might have one or more external hard drives connected to your computer. If you do, the computer’s BIOS or UEFI might have to wait for each to start up before it knows from which it needs to boot.
The more external drives you have attached, the longer this delay in booting could be. The delay caused by this process shouldn’t be a problem if you are using a fast and efficient computer. But on an older or less optimized PC, it can add several seconds to boot.
There are a few ways to make Windows ignore your external HDDs when booting up. Several of these steps involve accessing the BIOS or UEFI menu, also known as the boot menu. It is a good idea to ensure you are familiar with them before continuing.
1. How to Remove an External Disk Drive From the Boot List
All external drives connected to your computer will be automatically added to the Boot List in the BIOS or UEFI. Any hard drives you want the system to ignore can usually be removed from this list.
You will need to know how to access the Boot Menu during startup to make this change. The exact process varies but always involves pressing a function key as the computer starts. The most common keys used are F2, F10, or F12.
Start or restart your Windows PC and press the relevant function key to enter the BIOS or EUFI boot menu. Find the Boot Options and look for the list that shows Boot Order. Select the drive you want to remove and look for the option to remove it from the boot list. Repeat this for any other drives you want the boot process to ignore. Finally, select Save Changes and Exit. The boot process will proceed with the new settings, and Windows will load.
Not all versions of BIOS or UEFI have the option to remove a volume from the boot list. In this situation, you should at least ensure that the drive that contains Windows boots first. The devices at the top of the list are first in the boot order.
To do this, select the drive that contains the OS in the boot list. Using the keys shown, which are usually the up/down arrow keys, change the drive’s position. Ensure any external drives are at the bottom of the list. Or at least lower than the OS drive.
2. How to Reset Fast Boot or Fast Startup
The Fast Boot or Fast Startup option is designed to make your Windows PC start more quickly. They may have been enabled for a long time without you giving them much thought. But if drives have been added and removed repeatedly, their configurations can become muddled.
To reset Fast Boot or Fast Startup all you really need to do is disable the feature, reboot, and activate it again.
Open Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options, and click on Choose what the power buttons do. Click the box next to Turn on Fast Startup to disable it. If the option is greyed out, click Change settings that are currently unavailable. You will need to be using an administrator account to do this. Save the changes and shut down your PC. Don’t restart; a complete shutdown is required here. Check all your hard drives are connected, boot your computer and enable Fast Boot/Fast Startup again. Shut down once more, prompting Windows to create a new fastboot file, then reboot.
If incorrect fast boot settings were causing the slow boot time, you should immediately notice a difference.
3. How to Set Disk Drive Partitions as Inactive
It’s really easy to learn how to partition a drive in Windows, but if your external hard drives have active partitions, the boot process will check to see if they are bootable volumes. This can also slow down the boot process.
You can easily set partitions to inactive using the Windows Disk Management tool. Editing partitions can seem like a task best left to experts, but when editing a storage volume, the risk of disaster is quite low.
Right-click the Start Menu button and select Disk Management from the power-user menu. Find the external hard drive in the bottom section of the tool. This is where the disks and partitions are displayed. Right-click on a partition and check if it is active or inactive, as shown in the menu. If it is active, change it to inactive.
This won’t affect how a storage volume works in terms of being able to copy files and data onto it. You can still use them in the normal way, they just won’t be checked during boot.
4. How to Update Your BIOS or UEFI
If the boot process continues to be slow, consider updating the BIOS or UEFI. The BIOS or UEFI installed on your computer likely has an updated version available. Especially if your computer is more than 12 months old.
Updating the BIOS or UEFI is not the easiest of tasks. But it shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you follow the update instructions carefully. You will need to know your exact motherboard model and manufacturer. You can then check the manufacturer’s website for any BIOS updates.
Making Windows Ignore HDDs for Faster Boot Times
Your attached external disk drives could be making the boot time longer than it needs to be. Ensuring the Windows boot process ignores drives that don’t need to be checked can considerably reduce how long it takes to start up. This varies depending on how many hard drives you have attached, but where PC booting is concerned, faster is always better.
