For the 50th time, windows sucks :winkwink:

but how can an ide cable fix it?

damn - so no one knows?

Buy a new 120gig hd and install Windows XP on it and then install your programs one at time till it lags on bootup.

Once you findout what is causing it then you can go from there.

You might try installing Windows and all the apps you use then do a disk image to a few cd's and use that as a restore point and just redo your pc every 6months or so.

Otherwise use linux or a MAC