Windows XP starts up extemely slow. HELP!!

[spikey]

Many thanks for your replies.

I did ring Sony and was also recommended to run Sony recovery programme
after backing up my files. It took about 6 hours to restore the C drive.
During the windows set up, whenever I pressed the 'next' button, the
laptop made some creaky noise instead of its usual sound. At last an
error message occurred:

error number 0 x 80040706
description: object reference not set
set up will now terminate

And then the windows started up in the same slow motion. It's been 40
minutes and the desktop still hasn't loaded.

I also noticed that the taskmgr.exe used up most of the CPU(sometimes
100%) when no application was running at the background.

Any idea what on earth the problem could be? I read something about
failing hard drive, but is it possible the case, since this is a new
laptop?

 

[Guest]

Hi.. It sounds like setup didn't complete. That can't be good. It is
tough saying what didn't get finished but that might a big problem right
there. Slow startup can be virus' but if you've just reloaded everything, I
don't think that's it. Task Manager should NOT be that busy. Wow. What
process is listed under task manager? Slow system can also be a memory
problem. Right click on My Computer and click on properties. How much RAM
does it say you have? Does that match what should be in your machine? If
you can click on the Performance tab in Task Manager, whats available
physical memory show?