The date and time was 11/21/2008 8:55 AM, and on a whim, AT and HMB
pounded out on the keyboard:

Thanks. I will try that first. This particular computer has only ever had XP
PRO for the past (say) 2+ years: I will have to try to rethink the boot mgr
thing. A few years ago, I did do quite a lot of experimenting with
multi-operating systems and perhaps there is something there. On the other
hand I'm at a loss to understand why this is suddenly happening when I had
not even examined the BIOS for ages.

"Terry R." wrote in message
...
The date and time was 11/21/2008 5:33 AM, and on a whim, AT and HMB
pounded out on the keyboard:

Thank you Terry for a civilised reply.
The computer is one of several I built from scratch and has been in daily
use for 3years or so.
In retrospect, of course I should have realised it was NOT a Windows
problem and to all those people who have become upset/irate about this I
offer my humble apology. To those who have the time to post insults, I
say "get a life"
Following the useful comments I updated my BIOS with the MSI Live
Monitor. This didn't help.
I will now concentrate on the BIOS area and would appreciate any pointer
to NG or User Group that might be able to help me.
Many thanks again to those who replied constructively.

Be sure to check the options of the Boot Manager. If it's sitting at the
BIOS screen for a long time before proceeding, I would guess the Boot
Manager is causing the delay.




I had a similar thing happen recently with an IBM workstation. It
booted fine when we received it (donated computer). After wiping the
drive and reinstalling Windows, the workstation sat at the BIOS screen
for a couple minutes before proceeding. I thought there was an issue
with the hard drive before realizing that the boot manager was looking
for a network to boot. After failing its search, it would boot
normally. I either changed the order or disabled it, I can't remember.
I'm guessing I pressed a certain key combo to set it for network boot
without realizing it.

--
Terry R.

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