Hi,
Having XP SP2, checked this issue on more than one computer, assume
you checked one of your harddrives at startup with "chkdsk /f", after
the operation is done successully, in next bootup the desktop is
loaded too much later(HDD activity is excessive) than a regular
desktop load(daily, non-chkdsk done). You can measure to see the
difference. Why does chkdsk effect startup and desktop loading time
for once when it's run previously? XP is strange.