Really slow pre xp boot help please!!!!!

Hi all,

Hope someone can suggest something with this. On a HP/Compaq nx9110
laptop. 16 months old just had the Seagate hard drive fail so have
replaced it with a new Hitachi/IBM of the same size. Installed xp pro
sp2 etc and latest drivers from hp. Only problem is the pre windows
boot is about 15 seconds long. This thing used to boot really quick.
No problems once in Windows but don't understand what it's doing before
booting to windows. In this time the screen is blank! I wondered if
the hard drive needed specific drivers but Hitachi site says that the
Windows drivers are all that is needed. They don't do a specific set.
It's a P4 2.8 with 768 ram!!!!

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Boot order is HD then CD.

Many thanks