For whatever reason, my desktop crashed last night like an exhausted drunk, and I had to format and reinstall XP.

Here's the problem.....normally when you restart your computer, it restarts right away (at least within 30-60 secs). But now, after the initial splash screen (Ihave a Dell, so you see the Dell emblem along with the F2 and F12 options), instead of going to the Windows XP splash screen right a way, it goes to a completely black screen with a bunch of white hash marks all away across the bottom of the screen and then they are slowly filled in (takes about 4-5 minutes) and THEN the XP screen appears. Am I missing something in my boot sequence? Why is it taking so long to boot? Please help! :cry:

Check for viruses and spyware on your machine.