slow boot takes hours

[Erwin]

SYTEM:
HP ZE5000 laptop
80gb harddrive
512MB RAM
Win XP pro SP2

PROBLEM:
Boot up time takes several hours instead of the normal 50 seconds. When
I press the power button the HP logo (enter into bios screen) is
displayed normally then the screen will go to black. It then takes
hours to get to the screen with the white bar going across, and this
screen takes a couple of hours. Once past the monochrome screens the
computer seems to work normal it displays the logging in screen and the
gets into windows fine. Using the system is normal it is just terribly
slow to boot up.

I've reinstalled the OS several times. Usually after installing the OS
it takes 10-15 minutes to boot up until one of the drivers are
installed (it's always a diferent one each time).

I don't think that the recovery CD works (Win XP Home) after I chose to
install the OS it went to a black screen for over 12 hours before I
turned the laptop off. I am using a copy of Win XP Pro which installs
nicely (except for the slow reboot).

When I upgrade to SP2 the computer takes hours to reboot. I ran the
optimization with bootvis and that fixed the problem. 10 days later the
laptop returned to taking several hours to reboot. I've retried bootvis
and that didn't work. I ran a trace of the boot+drivers but I'm not
really sure what to make of it. It said that the boot up process takes
45 seconds even though it took hours.

I did not install any new software after bootvis. I'm quite certain
that this is not spyware, adware or a virus especially since the
problem persists after a clean install.

I foolishly contacted HP support. They gave up after asking their basic
help manual questions.

Any suggestions?

 

[Comp Tech]

Most likely you have a MAJOR harware problem. Does it boot to a Windows 98
(or Windows ME) boot disk allreight? If not then you will to to fix those
issues first. If to boots fine to a dos boot disk, then I would suspect a
failing hard drive.

 

[Erwin]

It boots to the Win ME disk fine. I went to the Hitachi website (the
maker of my hard drive), downloaded the hard drive test, and it
reported the hard drive as fine. The Win XP Pro CD boots up fine. I ran
the HP diagnostic software and everything was reported as good.

The hard drive is a new one. The old one had crashed. I ran the mfg.
diagnostic software on the old hard drive and it reported problems.

I'm thinking that something is wrong witht he physical connection
between the hard drive and the motherboard. I've tried reseating the
hard drive. The one thing that does surprise me is that once the laptop
boots into Windows it will run smoothly for hours and the next reboot.
I can always get it working again by reinstalling the OS and the HP
specific drivers.

 

[Erwin]

I believe that I figured it out. My new hard drive is a 5600 RPM drive
while the old one that crashed was 4200 RPM. My laptop runs pretty hot
when using the 5600 RPM and the heat is too much for the hard drive
and/or laptop. I went and picked up a 4200 RPM drive and all of my
booting problems were gone. Even the Recovery CD worked.

So my solution will be to trade my 80GB 5600 RPM drive for an 80GB 4200
RPM drive.

Thanks for the help.