Reformat Causes Slower Boot/Performance?

[Guest]

I recently reformatted my hard drive, and after reinstalling all the stuff I wanted, I noticed that boot times were considerably longer and also when I tried to start up programs once booted up, those would take longer as well. So my three questions are:
First, should I be asking around at my computer manufacturer's website instead of here? Second, why is everything taking longer? I know with CD-RW's, if you write to them once, then erase the CD, then try to write to it again, it will be slower, so is my problem something like this, or something entirely different? And third, what can I do to fix it?

Also I am running a Pentium 4 2.4GHz processor with 512 MB RAM and a 60GB HDD if this information helps determine my problem.

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Make sure your hard drives are in DMA mode. Sometimes
that gets switched out.

RDM

 

[Guest]

I thought I made sure they were in DMA after I reformatted, but just to make sure I checked again and they're in DMA.