Problem with start up.

[mrtruesdale]

I've been running XP for about a year now and suddenly my startup takes a good couple of minutes to get through. It goes immediately to the desktop but I can't open any programs for about a minute and a half (and the hard drive going crazy during this time)

I thought maybe using the repair feature on the XP disc would work but it warns me I have a newer version installed so alot of data would be lost.

What are my options? A clean reinstall and upgrade back up to SP2?

Any ideas would be much obliged.
mrtruesdale

 

[NiallW]

Have you checked fragmentation of your hard disk? While I doubt whether this would be the case if it's suddenly slowed down (unless you've done a lot of deleteing and adding of files), it's worth checking.

 

[altheman]

Fragmentation is a likely cause, but it could also be spyware. Just to be on the safe side, follow the instructions in this thread, and post a HJT log in the security forum.

 

[tekNerd]

Fragmentation it is something to look into, indeed.
On the other hand, what programs you have on your startup? Services? Some scheduled tasks?
If u don't know already about http://www.sysinternals.com/, go check it out. Very useful stuff in there. (especially Autoruns for starters)

Peace out!