Windows takes forever to boot

[wildthing4ever]

Hi,

I know there must be a million such threads, but went through a few, since I saw no obvious solutions.

I am running Windows XP Pro SP2, with the latest updates installed. My system was running fine, till about 2 months ago. Since then, every few times when I reach the windows login screen, if I typed in my password and tried to login when there was a lot of disk churning going on, the system seemed to hang. I would usually just cold-reboot at this point, since I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I suspected an HDD problem. However, last night I had left my system on to finish some downloads, with auto-shutdown.

Since this morning, whenever I login, it takes about 5-6 minutes to login, and another 10 minutes to finish loading. I used msconfig to disable all startup programs to no avail.

I've run a complete AV scan, run Spybot and Ad-Aware, scanned the disk using chkdsk /f /r, defragmented, but the problem still remains.

How do I proceed to figure out what is causing the problem?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Edit: Also, I just remembered that for some strange reason, explorer.exe stops responding for a short while when I press a windows hotkey for an application. For example, if I've set Ctrl+Alt+Y as a shortcut for Y! Messenger, the first time I press the combo, explorer stops responding. The taskbar won't respond, the start menu won't respond, but other apps will continue normally.

Also, I'd installed Kaspersky AV 6 a few months ago, and I've read that it can cause HDD problems.

 

[Soap]

are there any strange programs running in the background on boot that you do not recognise?

 

[wildthing4ever]

are there any strange programs running in the background on boot that you do not recognise?

Nope. Went through the startup list with a finecomb. In fact, I removed all apps from startup through msconfig just to be sure. Have also run online AV tests, and AVG is always running...but can't rule out some extremely cleverly disguised service or something...

Either way, I'll know by tomorrow if it's the HDD's fault, or a software problem. I've borrowed my friend's HDD, and have cloned my disk onto it. If the same problem occurs on the cloned HDD, it's prolly just s/w. I'm doing a clean install of XP anyways, since I do love the rush of a superfast clean boot!

Thanks for the help,
I guess I should mark this issue as resolved...
Wild Thing

 

[raybay]

When did you install IE 7.0? We have seen a number of problems after that install, requiring driver reinstalls, and driver upgrades on some models.
This is now a frequent problem in our shop... the easiest fix is a reinstall. Also shows up more frequently with clients who use AOL 9.0 security edition, McAfee's recent editions with firewall, or Symantec Internet Security recent editions...
We are inclined to suspect the above along with some Microsoft updates. We do not see the problem with AVG and Zone Alarm.
Sorry this is not a solution. We hope somebody posts with one. We just wanted to add that is is a growing problem, not an isolated one.

 

[wildthing4ever]

When did you install IE 7.0? We have seen a number of problems after that install, requiring driver reinstalls, and driver upgrades on some models.
This is now a frequent problem in our shop... the easiest fix is a reinstall. Also shows up more frequently with clients who use AOL 9.0 security edition, McAfee's recent editions with firewall, or Symantec Internet Security recent editions...
We are inclined to suspect the above along with some Microsoft updates. We do not see the problem with AVG and Zone Alarm.
Sorry this is not a solution. We hope somebody posts with one. We just wanted to add that is is a growing problem, not an isolated one.

Hi,

Firstly, I'd like to mention that my immediate problem, that of all bootups taking a long time have been solved. I can boot at normal speed now! Yay! I haven't really tested if trying to login in quickly hangs the PC, but will try it out, and let you know.

I'd successfully installed IE7's preview release a long time ago. I later uninstalled it, and tried to install IE 7 final, which didn't work. I haven't retried this in the recent past (might have done so within two months). Do you think there's a connection? I currently have IE 6 installed.

Thanks,
Wild Thing