Help me figure this XP problem out..

[FirehawkNS]

Working on my Brother-n-laws HP media computer. He got a virus that wipe'd out something and the computer wouldn't boot. I tried the HP built in recovery from that stupid partition and it wouldn't copy any files over. Just said unable to copy. So I took my copy of Win XP pro and installed it. Afterwards it wouldn't even let me into the HP partition (which is still there untouched), but anyway to the problem at hand, computer boots up and runs fine. I do all the windows updates. Well, after SP2 got on, the computer got slow as hell booting up. It gets to where the bars go across the bottom (which usually takes all of a second and did before the sp2 install), but now it takes roughly 10 minutes for the screen to get past those bars. Once the computer gets to the Windows Splash screen it loads up fast as hell and the computer runs damn fast (like you expect a 3.2G, 512mb computer to do). But it takes 10 minutes to boot up the thing. Anybody ran across this? Tried HP tech, but when you know more then the tech you are talking too, it is kinda pointless!!

[djnes]

If there's not much on the system presently, rebuild it using a slipstreamed copy of SP2 into XP Pro. That will work much much better. Typically, a long delay at boot is due to a driver problem, or a network issue. 10 minutes seems long for a network issue, but anything's possible.

[tazzmissionx]

Maybe the hard drive has issues or it is on it's way out, I would try running diagnostics software from boot, find out manufacturer of hard drive, go to their website download software that can boot of off cd or floppy

[Phoenix86]

Virus rarely prevent the OS from booting, that's more likely HDD failure. Run the HDD manuf.'s test on the drive.

[FirehawkNS]

Well get this, after about the 35th bootup the thing started running great!! Now it boots right up every time no problems. I changed nothing. I did some googling and came across an article that said that some HP machines saw a slow boot up right at the screen I was saying the first 2 or 3 times you start the machine after SP2. So I just kept rebooting the thing, then all of a sudden, after I had felt stupid for continuing to reboot the thing knowing good and well it wasn't going to work any better, It started booting fine. Been a few days, machine unplugged, plugged back in. Software added and taken off and the machine is still running great!!

Go figure!! Someone figure out that one! Think it is an error in the MBR of HP machines that has to adapt? MB problem? Just curious what could have caused something like this now!!

[djnes]

I've been searching through our internal support forums and I haven't found anything yet. I'm still looking though.

[FirehawkNS]

Thanks!! I can't even guess as to how this problem could have fixed itself. At least I can't not knowing why it happend!!