I recently installed windows 8.1 and there is a problem with the windows Fast Start up (hybrid boot) feature as sometimes it works and windows starts very fast and sometimes it doesn't starts fast but just take some time to start as if I started from a cold boot.

I tried everything to solve this problem but nothing worked, like testing the RAMS, formatting and reinstalling the windows and trying it without installing any programs, removing all the USB devices, checking the disk for errors and after all that the problem wasn't solved.

I actually checked the event log file after each start up and figured out that when the windows starts fast there will not be any errors regarding the problem, but when the windows boots slowly I can see that there is some errors regarding windows shutdown and start up and which is as follows

1- Windows failed fast start up with error status 0xC00000D4.

2- The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

3- The previous system shutdown at 10:21:57 PM on ‎9/‎17/‎2014 was unexpected.



According to what is mentioned above this problem is caused by the windows not shutting down properly and which off course will affect the saving process of windows to the hiberfil.sys file which is mainly used by windows for fast start up and which in return affects the windows fast start up.

Actually I have a laptop with

1- msata SSD and this where windows is installed

And as for storage I have

2- 2 x 2TB in RAID0

3- 1 x 750gb SSHD



So I thought of disabling the storage drives from the BIOS to see what will happen and so I was just left with my msata SSD which had windows 8.1 installed in it and then I did about 10 shutdowns and start ups and yes the problem is gone and it's starting up and shutting down even faster than before.

And then I tried enabling the 750gb first and leaving the RAID HDD's disabled and then tried shutting down and restarting the laptop for several times and it worked perfectly without any issues then after that I enabled the RAID0 HDD's with the 750gb enabled the problem came back, I also tried enabling only the RAID HDD's without enabling the 750gb HDD but the problem was still there, which means that this problem is caused by the RAID0 configuration causing the windows not shutting down properly.

So is there any windows program which will help assuring that all the drives are closed properly before shutting down windows or is there a bios option which can be changed for solving this problem. Or is there a least any windows configuration which can be done which will make windows to shut down the RAID drives correctly before shutting down the system?

I had this problem also when I first started doing it.

Like you, I noticed my problem went away as soon as I disconnected my 2 other external HDDs (they were not however in RAID). My solution at the time was to move those HDDs to the Asmedia controller, leaving only my RAID0 SSDs to the Intel controller. This fixed the problem. Since then I've moved the HDDs back to the Intel controller and it's still working but the difference is the RST version I'm running.

I'm using latest today, not causing issues. Double check that and see how you go.