Fresh XP install VERY slow

I have an unusual problem, and I have searched for answers on the site, but nothing has helped...

I installed XP Pro SP3 (genuine) onto a brand new harddrive, and it loaded up with no problems. I installed the relevant motherboard drivers and graphics card drivers etc, Kaspersky Internet Security, and everything was sweet. Then it began to run really slowly. But not everything. Firefox loads up with no problems, but everything Windows related runs super slowly. I click to open control panel, and walk away, and five or ten minutes later it opens. I click on it to switch it to classic view, and it sits thinking with the little torch on the folder thingy that it does. I wondered if it was something that needed an update, so I ran the updater, and it downloaded okay, but it took 24 hours to install 60 updates - which took this computer about 10 minutes beforehand. Strangely though, it starts up fine, it's not slow until actually inside Windows.

An aside, I'm reinstalling windows onto a new hard drive, because the old one got a virus, but I still need what's on it..... so I can't just wipe it. I ran up XP Home on this new drive in this system, and it ran fine, I only changed to Pro because I managed to find the disc for it.

Specs:
Motherboard: Gigabyte ep43-ds3
Chip: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 ghz 8mb cache 1066 FSB
Graphics: MSI NVidia N9600GT 512mB
HDD: Western Digital 640gb 7200 SATA
RAM: Kingston 2x2GB

Can anyone help please? I'm so confused!! I've never come across anything like this before.
Thanks in advance =)
Lena

Oh, also, once I finally manage to get the task manager open to see how much of the CPU is being used, it never goes above about 2%, and usually sits at 0%, even when I'm trying to open (for example) windows explorer.

 

Welcome to Major Geeks.
Sorry that I don't have an answer for you, but sounds bad.
Recently did the same new install on my machine (XP Pro) and goes pretty fast.
I only have a P4 machine and 1GB RAM in mine.Cable connection got all Windows Updates downloaded and installed in about 25 minutes.
Also, check out your memory usage to see what % is used or what programs are running in the background.

 

It's a new drive, I know. But..
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Western_Digital_DLG_Diagnostics_d3505.html
Run the diagnostics. This is a bit dated though.
Cheers..