Booting suddenly takes forever

[Elin]

My computer (DELL Inspiron 8100 laptop) has recently
began taking a very long time to boot. The desktop comes
up with all its icons, but the taskbar seems to hang, and
I do not always get the correct icons in the Notification
area when it finally appears.
I decided to restore to a date in the past, before the
problem started, but discovered that my system restore
does not work any more. I did try switcing it off,
rebooting and switching on again - but this did not help.
What can be the matter?

 

[Brian]

-----Original Message-----
My computer (DELL Inspiron 8100 laptop) has recently
began taking a very long time to boot. The desktop comes
up with all its icons, but the taskbar seems to hang, and
I do not always get the correct icons in the Notification
area when it finally appears.
I decided to restore to a date in the past, before the
problem started, but discovered that my system restore
does not work any more. I did try switcing it off,
rebooting and switching on again - but this did not help.
What can be the matter?

.Have you tried starting your system in safe mode to see

if you get the normal icons to appear? In WinXP,
restarting while holding the F8 key will present a menu
whereby you can select the startup mode. If there is
something new in your startup list, you may have to remove
it from the list in your registry. To change the startup
items, click Start, Run, Type in "MSConfig" and click OK.
In the System Configuration Utility From the general tab
you can launch system restore or you can click diagnostic
startup or choose selective startup and uncheck the 4
boxes. Then reboot and see if everything loads normally.
Afterward, Be sure to go back into the System
Configuration Utility and reset to normal startup. Before
you try these things, you should make sure you are
parasite free.