10 minutes boot time

[Guest]

Im running Xp Pro Sp2 on a dell gx270. Its a good machine, but recently it
has been taking 10 minutes to start up.

It occurs after the bios boot screen, that load imediatly. But once its
finished, instead of moving to the windows load screen, it just has a little
curser/propmt thing up in the left corner.

Ive removed al spyware with spybot and adaware, ran disk deframenter, virus
check(norton sw 05), cleaned out all the cookies temp files temp internet
files, the recycle bin and the norton protected files. Still nada.

A friend suggested restoring the boot files, but ive been reluctant to do
it cause of lack of expereince. Should i do this? If so should i back up
the entire hd? Or is the hd failng on me, cause once windows loads there are
no problems?

The only thing i was able to find were in the dell diagnostics test, many of
the ide tests failed.

 

[Galen]

In H <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

The only thing i was able to find were in the dell diagnostics test,
many of the ide tests failed.

Stop using your PC now except to backup your data. Get a new harddrive from
the OEM if it's still under warranty. When those tests fail it usually isn't
a good thing. It could, also, be the reason for your startup as it's busy
seeking and seeking and seeking but not finding quickly or platters aren't
being scanned by the head properly.

Galen

 

[frodo]

did you perhaps install the Intel Application Accelerator (non-raid
version)? Dell often recommends this old driver, but it is unnecessary
w/ XP, and can cause this long boot problem.