[betelgeuse™]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FatalException

This lag could be caused by a number of things. For instance, an add-on raid controller on the board may be searching for other drives on other channels. Some search methods take 10 or more seconds to complete - I know my old RAID card took about 20 seconds to search for drives on each boot before Promise fixed the problem with a card BIOS update.

My suggestion: make sure your SATA RAID controller is disabled in the BIOS settings and make sure Windows has the newest drivers for your SATA controller (available at the site you posted). Also, windows has a setting for how long it should "delay" before attempting to boot. While this is usually not changed by any programs, it may have somehow, through some miracle of fate, gotten changed. Go into your system control panel within Windows. Then click the advanced tab. Click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery. Then edit the startup file and see if there is anything OTHER than the standard 30 second delay listed there. As an example, I have included my startup file below. I hope this helps.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Wow thanks for your help. It was "raid" being enabled in the bios. Silly me.