A properly functioning PATA 100 drive will not cause such slow operation. One of my computers runs a PATA 100 'C' HDD, and the others run SATA 300's. In everyday use there is very little difference in access speed. The difference is measured in seconds, not minutes.

If it's taking 5 minutes to open a program the problem lies elsewhere, not the HDD's access speed.

Have you looked at what processes are running in Task Manager. Can you see any that are using up a fair bit of the CPU.

I assume because its a new build you have nothing in my documents and hardly any icons on the desktop. But if you do have heaps of files sitting in my docs or desktop, try moving them to a new folder directly on the C:\ drive.

Also you can try clearing out the prefetch folder. In Windows Explorer go to C:\Windows\Prefetch. Delete all the files listed there.

Good call on the HDD. I will swap it out when i get back home in a week and i'll let you know how it turns out.
Thankyou for your help guys, i really appreciate it.

Sorry guys, i didn't read the other posts before i commented on the HDD. i'll give your suggestions a try and get back to you.
Thanks once again, i appreciate the help!