BOOT TIMES IN AN INFORMATION PROCESSING DEVICE WITH EXTERNALLY CONNECTED DEVICES

An apparatus to shorten the time taken for executing a booting process includes, in one embodiment, a connection processing unit that establishes communication with and acquires information from a plurality of devices that are communicably coupled externally to an information processing device, the information relating to the plurality of devices regardless of whether a booting process is executed. The apparatus also includes a communication control unit that executes communication with each of the plurality of devices during the booting process, and a first processing unit that one of enables or disables communication between the communication control unit and a selected one of the plurality of devices in response to the acquired information related to the selected one of the plurality of devices. A method and a computer program product also perform functions of the apparatus.