Very Slow To Boot and Can System Files Move?

[joegaff]

I have just re-installed XP on my laptop as it became unbearably slow and sometimes would not boot. The problem came back and I can't pinpoint any particular software that coincided with it. When I turned off the Norton Internet Security start up programs in msconfig, it seemed to fix it. So I then uninstalled NIS but the problem is still there. Also I noticed when I defrag that the green "unmovable files" are in a different place now compared to when I brought it home from the shop. This must have happened during the re-install. I installed and ran Diskeeper and this shows my green system files kind of all over the place. Is this part of the problem? How can I fix it? My machine takes 10-15 min to boot sometimes. Help!

[scouse]

what are your system specs mate...

download Belarc advisor if you do not know it will tell you what you need to know http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

[joegaff]

1.3G Centrino, 40G HDD and 512Mb RAM. XP Home and Office, Norton AV, Picture It and a couple of other things. Nothing too heavy. The only things loading at startup are the standard windows stuff, drivers and AV.

[scouse]

it may be trying to find a driver for a certain app and having trouble loading it, when you first got the laptop it booted fine until you reinstalled XP home did you have a recovery disc or the full xp stand alone disc?
by the way have you checked for spyware? and virus?
run http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/ download from that link...
when you reinstalled xp were you able to use the generic drivers provided with it and have you stook with them?
NAV is a resource hog and if you want to do an online virus check you can go here http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ it is a good online free service...
also black viper gives a lot of great tips for configuering xp home
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
I have never owned a laptop or messed with one...
also goto run type msconfig goto start up and disable everything from startup apart from what you need..see if boot up is better if so go back and switch one back on for start up and keep doing that until you find which app is causing the slow boot up...

[joegaff]

Thanks for the tips. The computer had issues before I reinstalled, that's what prompted me to do it. I disabled a bunch of stuff in msconfig and it got quicker. Still not great though so I thought I would reformat again this morning. At first it would not work at all. I was getting the message saying "Windows was not installed. The disk might be damaged etc" Then by some miracle it just worked on the fourth attempt. It is going great now.

Thanks for the spy-ware tip. I discovered Spybot a few weeks ago and cleaned out a bunch of stuff. All seems to be well now. I have noticed that the "unmovable files" (the green ones when you run defrag) are in a different spot again since reformatting. Is this normal? At least they are in two clumps this time and not all over the drive. Is that better?

Thanks for your reply.

Joe

[braindead]

This is completely normal, defrag puts the files in a spot where the whole file will fit so it will not be fragmated. Every time you run defrag you may notice these sections put into new locations.

[scouse]

Glad you were able to fix it, Braindead thanx for the tip on the defrag