Windows 11 slow boot when USB 3 hard drive is attached

Hi,

This is my first post in this forum and I thank you in advance for all the help you can provide.
I am running Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview OS buikd 22543.1000.
My issue consists of a black screen with a mouse cursor on top left of the screen for more than 10 seconds before Windows login screen appears.
I have tried to troubleshoot unplugging all usb devices and I came to the conclusion that the issue is caused by a Imation 500 gb USB 3.0 harddrive.
If I remove this hard drive boot time is significantly reduced
I tried to format the drive but to no luck.
I also followed your tip of a FarBar scan so I also attach a copy of the log

Any suggestions from your side would be appreciated

Thank you and have a nice Sunday

I had a similar problem. Uninstalling the drive via Device Manager then rebooting solved it for me.

Use CrystalDiskInfo utility to view SMART health result.

Also execute Chkdsk X: /r command.

I'm not sure what you mean is significant in your case, but I can agree it is also a noticeable difference for me. With my external drive plugged in, from the time I see the Dell logo until my desktop loads a cold boot takes 42 sec as opposed to 30 sec. with the drive unplugged.
A restart is 85 sec with it plugged in and 45 sec. with it unplugged. As I have hibernate disabled, I have no fast startup.

The only real issue I see with boot times when having external drives attached is the reading of the drives by the BIOS boot process to determine where the boot files are located. Have seen where the boot time with a Thumb drive plugged in was faster after that drive had been cleaned of factory-included software and formatted as FAT32 [which is how they usually come].

It is normal during POST. The system detects all the attached peripherals and look for the boot file after. Hence, the boot up delay.