XP Pro Boot problems

Windows XP pro sp3 on Dell Latitude E6500. Boots normally but takes 16 minutes for the task bar at the bottom to start working. The start will not work and the antivirus, sas, and network icons do not show up till this time out. was redirected here from the malware thread. Have also attached the event viewer for system in the malware thread and it will not let me attach it again here. Thanx for any help you can provide been on this for a week now and frustrated.

 

Try this:

Press Windows Key + R or go to start > Run
Type in msconfig
press enter,

You should see a window named System Configuration Utility
Select Selective Startup and Uncheck the Load Startup Items checkbox
Click OK.
Reboot and check if the problem persists

If it does, go back to System Configuration Utility and now uncheck the Load System Services checkbox.
Press Ok and reboot.

Report back here even if the problem goes away, to pinpoint the program that is causing the problem.

 

Gave me an error msg saying I must be logged on as an administrator both before restart and while booting but it booted without the long delay.

 

I was wrong it worked once now I can't get it to boot without the delay even after unchecking startup

 

Hello Ewright...

This is the most comprehensive set of checks I have found for boot speed for XP:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Windows-XP-Startup-Faster

XP, in my experience, is slow to boot, anyway, in comparison to Windows 7 especially. However, tinkering with the ideas above helped some for me. The first one seems to at least speed up the first part of a boot where the bar moves across. I have the Timeout set at 5 seconds, which worked best on this PC.

I tried turning off prefetching (instructions about 1/2 way down the page) and then deleting the files in the prefetch folder. At first I thought it was great, but then I found that the performance of the PC during general use took a hit. I had saved all of the prefetch files on another drive, so I just placed them back in once I returned prefetch to the normal setting. It worked fine to do that (I think it was 2 of the files that wouldn't copy back over for system or maybe security reasons, but once prefetch is back on those are automatically regened anyway). I don't think I'll mess with that idea again...not that it hurt anything.

The rest of the practices on the page are good practices. Might be a good idea to check with the manufacturer of your hard drive to see if they have a scanner, so you can run a hard drive test. Chkdsk will/would help, but the manufactuer test will tell you more. Also, if you have a program that will read SMART data, that can be helpful in determining if you have a hard drive problem. HWiNFO32 is what I use to make sure the drive is passing in all areas of SMART. If you try this, click on Drives, then your main drive, then scroll to the bottom of info for the drive to see SMART data in HWiNFO. Google [Major Geeks HWiNFO] for the download.

 

Thanx but I have already done that and my problem is the 16 minutes it takes for the task bar to start working. When I go to selective start up and uncheck the load up startup box I get an error saying I have to have administrative priviliges but it will sometimes work and boot without the delay if I just answer ok to the warnings.

 

As you may, or may not know XP is no longer supported by Microsoft.

At your earliest convenience, an upgrade is highly recommended unless this is an in house machine which does not access the internet.

 

Check your services against blackviper's list and change any as needed. I'd go for the barebones column.
http://www.blackviper.com/service-c...32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

Next go here and download and create a Dell diagnostic stick or disk (under driver downloads 1 file is under Diagnostics)
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/latitude-e6500/drivers

What antivirus are you running?