Help: Sudden change in Boot Time (slowdown)

[archer6]

My Z60m (1.7MHz/1.5GB/60GB) was booting up in a reasonable amount of time since new. Then suddenly (no changes made / software or hardware) the boot time slows down dramatically to around 3 minutes, or longer. I have checked all the ususal suspects , virus, disc corruption, and on and on. Shut down time is normal.

This is a stand alone computer, not networked. Very streamlined software setup, no google stuff, no bloatware. I'm looking for a fresh idea of where to go form here, a kickstart to the head...

Obviously I'm overlooking something here that could be really simple (or not?). Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks...

[devilsrejection]

inspect your hard drive with the manufacturs appropriate boot disk

your hard drive may be dying

[GomJabbar]

Another thing to check. Verify that your hard drive is not suddenly working in PIO mode. It should be using Ultra DMA. Go to Device Manager and look under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers > Primary IDE Channel and Secondary IDE Channel. They both should be using Ultra DMA mode. The secondary IDE channel is usually for the optical drive.