the problem i am having is that when i boot my computer, an dafter i get the INTEL startup screen when i bootup, i get a screen telling me about boot devices and stuff and asks me to press F4 to continue, after which i get a black screen with a blinkin cursor (underscore) and this goes on for 2-3 min after which i get the screen to select my OS. can i remove the delay in any way?
i aent talking about XP boot time, its the delay before xp is loaded. also, can i remove the screen where i have to press F4.
thanks

check your BIOS settings. This may be due to the boot sequence searching for either a CD or Ultra ATA card to boot from. I have made this mistake before. It sometimes happens even if the hard drive is specified to boot before these items. If you don't need them, then disable them. Hope this is what you need.

If the problem isn't within your bios, you may have a corrupt Master Boot Record, Boot Sector, NTLDR file or Partition table. Look at the following Microsoft knowledge Base article for more help. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314503/EN-US/

i solved the problem. thanks guys.

and the problem was....

actually, i dont know what the problem was. i took it to a repair shop, the guy there first checked the different parts of the comp like RAM, graphics card, etc, then took out the motherboard, started it without the case and then put it back. as simple as that, and my comp started running perfectly after that. so i guess there was something wrong with the wires and connections stuff.

Haha, perhaps some lose cable...

yeah, cant be any other problem. wonder how hardware stuff effects the loading of the machine...too techy for me...!!

EDIT: even THIS was solved with it.