you can try Microsoft Bootvis to optomize the boot process. It is not longer supported by MS but can be downloaded here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BootVis)

BootVis is a computer program that allows end users to check how long their Windows XP machine takes to boot. It was formerly a Microsoft product[1], but it is no longer an official Windows XP program. According to Microsoft, the design goals for Windows XP on a typical consumer PC are:

Boot to a useable state within a total of 30 seconds
Resume from Hibernate (S4) within a total of 20 seconds
Resume from Standby (S3) within a total of 5 seconds
The program measures boot and resume times as the time from when the power switch is pressed to the time at which the user is able to start a program from a desktop shortcut.

it can also be used to optimize the boot process. start it, and select Trace->Optimize System. Bootvis is not a miracle worker (all the tips given in the posts above are probably better), but it can help. Microsoft claims that it does not help, but others have reported that it does. See here: http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/bootvis/ for more discussion...

Ron