A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk for storing initial host requested (IHR) data requested by a host computer during a start-up process of the host computer, a head actuated radially over the disk, and a non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM) for caching at least part of the IHR data. The disk drive transmits the cached IHR data from the NVSM to the host computer during the start-up process thereby avoiding the delay associated with initializing the mechanics of the disk drive as well as conserving battery power for mobile applications.