Good suggestion, cooldude!
That -preload command is undocumented, but does seem to work, and is very useful for diagnosing issues like this.
Indeed, after preloading c:\windows, I did see the cache fill (albeit slowly), and read requests were being satisfied from the cache, but performance was still slow. Obviously, now, the issue was not being caused by the ReadyCache, but was elsewhere. Looking in the windows system log, there were thousands of atapi errors being reported, starting at the time I installed the ReadyyCache device. D’oh! I must have disturbed the SATA cable to the disk drive when I was adding the ReadyCache. I’m still amazed that windows wasn’t crashing all over the place.
So I swapped in a new SATA cable for the disk drive, and made sure everything was well seated. It’s all working now!
These ReadyCache devices are *wonderful*. That PC was taking 65 seconds to boot, now it’s under 30.
Thanks to all who helped, and I hope my experiences might help somebody else. I’m guessing that windows was dropping to PIO mode (explaining the slowness) and that this somehow bypassed the ReadyCache fill, or that the cache was constantly being cleared by the errors.
Thanks all.
AK
