Slow boot

[JogaBonito1502]

Lately my computer has been on the Windows user loading screen (the blue one, not the black windows loading screen) for a bit too long. 10-15 seconds. I have cleaned the registry, I run daily virus/spyware scans, and all parts but my HDD are new. The HDD is about 3 years old. Do you guys think it's time for a new one?

 

[IAntDemo]

did you restore yet~??~ try to see if that might be it

 

[JogaBonito1502]

I want to keep system restores as a last resort, plus I don't even know when the latest one is. Other than WarCraft III, I haven't really installed anything on this machine since I booted it up the first time. I have only updated spyware and virus programs and ran the Windows Updates. I could live this out a little more, but if it starts to lengthen I think it could be the hard-drive. So I'd like someone to double check this information for me.

Hard-drive going out = gradual increase in boot times?

 

[Holysky]

The computer is supposed to take a little bit longer to load, it just depends on how much stuff you have in it.

 

[JogaBonito1502]

I realize that, but WarCraft III shouldn't make that big of a difference. Specially, because it doesn't run a process on Windows Start-up.

 

[Holysky]

maybe you should run a virus scan in safe mode? that sometimes finds hidden virus' a lot of times.

 

[JogaBonito1502]

I'll do that next boot. For the time being, I just want to know for sure that HDD failure causes gradual increase in boot time.

 

[Holysky]

could you please specify your type of HDD if you can?

 

[JogaBonito1502]

From what I could gather in the Dell website and google it's a Samsung SpinPoint P80SD HD080HJ 80GB 7200RPM. I don't see how the brand could have anything to do with it other than early failure.

 

[Holysky]

does it make a slight clicking sound? a faint one from time to time?

or any other abnormal sounds?

crashes, slow. Strange error messages?