Odd problem, never seen it before

[drdeutsch]

Hey everybody. My girlfriends comp has a weird problem that just started today. She installed a driver so that she can update/download stuff to her Verizon Wireless cell phone via USB, but immediately after that her bootups started taking about 5 minutes.

Everything will initialize (I think) but she'll get a black screen for about 5 minutes before the Win XP loading screen comes up. After that, everything runs fine.

She's already deleted the driver. In fact, before I got home, she had tried reinstalling WinXP (I know, I know....) and of course that didn't work.

Any ideas on what is stalling the boot-up? I'm at a loss as I've never seen this before.

Thanks,
drdeutsch

 

[4keatimj]

System Restore?

I don't know what the problem would be. Is the device plugged in at bootup? Maybe Windows (or the BIOS) is trying to initialise it, thinking its a drive, or some removable storage. Worse, the BIOS could be trying to boot off it (worse, because it'll spend a heap of time trying to find the boot record, and keep searching until it does). Make sure the cable is unplugged. If that doesn't do it, reset the BIOS.

If that doesn't do it, it could be 'drastic measures' time and time to re-install XP... if worse comes to worse.

 

[drdeutsch]

No, the cell phone isn't plugged in at bootup. Like I said, she already uninstalled the software and driver for it.

She also alrelady re-installed XP. I'll try resetting the BIOS. I've already looked at all the settings and everything looks okay, but I'll double-check.

Thanks for your help,
drdeutsch