Long Pause before XP Pro booting

[hKM261]

I have XP Pro SP2 installed on my Dell P4 system which has a 40GB main
HDD & a 200 GB secondary HDD. The secondary HDD has a Linux (Fedora 3)
installed on one of the its numerous partitions. This partition was
created using Partition Magic. I have been using Norton Bootmagic to
switch between both and everything has been working fine.

The other day I purchased a USB-IDE convertor and connected a old 2GB
HDD externally.

For reasons unkown to me, now during a cold start the system takes a
long Pause sometime more than 10 minutes before XP even starts booting.
All what I see the BIOS screen and after wards a blank screen. The
problem continues even after I have removed the external HDD. The only
way I can speed up the bootup process is to press CTRL+ALT+DEL while
waiting at the blank screen. The system now boots without any problem.
(the way it should do anyhow). I have temporarily even disabled
Bootmagic but with no help.

Pl. advise. Thanks in advance.

-HKM

 

[Dr Teeth]

Pl. advise. Thanks in advance.

Do a search on www.google.com . There are several things which may
apply to your case or at least set you in the right direction.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.