BleepingComputer.com: Win XP Taking a long time to boot

My computer has always booted up with no problems in about 30 seconds. About 2-3 weeks ago it started taking about 5 minutes to boot. What it will do is POST really fast as normal, then on the black Windows Logo screen it will stall for about 5 minutes with the little scrolly thing moving across about 100 times. Eventually it gets to the login screen and then to Windows. But I am trying to figure out what is causing this so I can reverse it. Here is what I've done so far and some info about my system:

Windows XP SP 2
IE8 not installed
Intel Dual Core
3 gigs of RAM
2Wire DSL Modem

Troubleshooting so far:

-Did system virus scans with Avast (which is running all the time anyway) and Malwarebytes (updated it before scan), no viruses found.

-Checked msconfig for any programs running I didn't need, disabled a couple that snuck in there somehow (quicktime toolbar etc.) but I don't think this was the problem anyway.... rebooted and no change.

-Ran eventvwr.exe to see if there were any errors during bootup that was slowing it down... nothing.

-Rebooted my computer with the network cable unplugged to see if maybe it was some kind of network issue.... didn't notice a change.

-Reviewed my Windows Update and found that it installed some kind of Family pack update to Microsoft .NET framework about the same time these boot problems started. Well, I had only installed the .NET framework to begin with for some program my wife needed, well she doesn't need it anymore, so I decided to uninstall the .NET framework completely.

-After I uninstalled each .NET piece I rebooted, no change in boot time.

-So I figured there were maybe some extra pieces laying around so i downloaded and ran the .NET uninstall cleanup utility found here http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/pages/8904493.aspx , it worked successfully. Rebooted, still no change.

-Finally I disabled the black XP logo screen so I could see what drivers it loads so I could see if it takes an unusually long time on one driver to narrow down the problem. (used the /SOS option under BOOT.INI in msconfig) Well, what happened was it loaded all the drivers in 1/2 a second then went to a blue Windows XP screen:

Microsoft ® Windows ® Version 5.18 (Build 2600: Service pack 2)
2 System Processors [3071 MB Memory] Multiprocessor Kernel

...for the rest of the 5 minutes. Giving me no clues.


So I'm stuck here, don't know what else to try. Need some help. I really don't want to reformat and reinstall and if it comes to that, I will just have to live with the 5 minute boot. But if Anyone has any ideas at all or anything I can try, please help me. Thank you!

Hello,

Can you get in to the system at all?
Do you perform defrags, cleanups etc?
If you can get in to the system, does it go at a slower than normal speed?
Have you updated the system drivers?