greetings to all at dal...
over the past few days my pc has taken longer and longer to boot up, have ran virus and spyware scans, no problems reported. It is now taking over 7 mins and still no boot to op system, got feed up waiting so reboot into safe mode. This is the only way I can run my system. Can anyone help me out of this sh*t creek I’m up???
win xp pro 32 bit sp2

Since it runs okay in Safe mode, use msconfig to determine what is causing the problem.

These are good tutorials on using msconfig in XP, Vista or Windows 7:
How to use msconfig in Windows XP
How to use msconfig in Windows Vista
How to use msconfig in Windows 7

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.
Click on the Startup tab, record what is currently starting then click the Disable All button.
Reboot and see if it runs better.
If yes then use msconfig to enable several items at a time till you find the culprit.

If no, start msconfig and click on the Services tab.
Check the Hide All Microsoft Services box, record what is currently starting then click the Disable All button.
Again, do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable services till you find the culprit.

Once you've found the culprit, uninstall it or find out how to eliminate it from your system. Simply disabling it in msconfig is a temporary fix at best.
Enable everything else you disabled.

cheers for your input, Rich, too many progs on this machine, me thinks. ended up flattening C drive, new reinstall and now got a lean mean machine again. still trying out different anti-virus progs ect. thank you once again.