Delay in booting Windows XP [into desktop]

[W@lly]

Hi there,

I have been to a client where he complained that it took forever to boot into windows. He had Windows Xp pro on an AMD Athlon 1.67Ghz with 1Gb RAM, so XP it should run fine.

I have done the malware/spyware removal procedure such as booting into safe mode and installed ccleaner, malwarebytes [which fixed 7 infected objects], ran smitfraud fix and uninstalled non-used software as told by client using Revo uninstaller.

Despite of all above, Windows XP boot logo [the screen with the blue progress bar] took so long to boot into windows. How would I know what is that long delay in booting up to desktop? I mean the progress bar lines passed about 23 times until there was the hd activity and 3 more mins when the desktop is actually accessible!

Mind you that I have also disable many startup-entries using msconfig, even using ccleaner's startup. I have also found in msconfig that many entries were already disabled prior to what I have disabled..

One more thing I have noticed is that in the boot.ini file there were 2 entries for windows Xp, but I have edited it to be only one entry [set as default ovbiously].

Thanks for your help...

[Cambridge PC Support]

Have you checked the HDD health?

[Tekguy]

Does it boot fairly fast into safe mode?

[W@lly]

Nope I haven't checked HDD health. I do remember though that booting into safe mode took some time as well. While scanning into malwarebytes in quick mode took like 1 hour too!

[Cambridge PC Support]

Originally Posted by W@lly

Nope I haven't checked HDD health.

Always do that first, especially on a slow machine.

[W@lly]

...will update you when chkdsk /r is performed, thanks.

[B Trevathan]

After you've checked the hard drive to make sure its ok you could also:
Run a AV live CD like Avira Rescue Disk or Dr. Web Live CD
Check the RAM one stick at a time with a live CD
Run system file checker
Defrag the hard drive
Run Process Monitor to see if the system is looking for a missing file

What AV is running? any scheduled tasks? anything load in the startup folder?

[OldSchoolPC]

Event Viewer is your friend.

[Cambridge PC Support]

Originally Posted by W@lly

...will update you when chkdsk /r is performed, thanks.

Yeah, very funnny

[W@lly]

Originally Posted by B Trevathan

After you've checked the hard drive to make sure its ok you could also:
Run a AV live CD like Avira Rescue Disk or Dr. Web Live CD; Did Boot time scan with Avast AV-OK nothing risky was found.

Check the RAM one stick at a time with a live CD; Will run MemTest86+and swap if needed.

Run system file checker= run sfc /scannow, even if system boots up properly? no missing system files are reported.

Defrag the hard drive; DEFINITELY will run this after chkdsk/r but I don't believe in Defrag could make a miracle, but anyway will give it a shot!

Run Process Monitor to see if the system is looking for a missing file.
What I need to do for this one please?

What AV is running? any scheduled tasks? anything load in the startup folder?
Avast AV free edition is being used. No scheduled tasks, and edited startup items in msconfig, although as already mentioned many items were already disabled from running during startup.

Thanks for the above suggestions.