If you've lost the partitions that where previously on the HDD and it's still booting the most likely explanation is that you allowed XP to do a Format of the HDD when you installed it.
The speed taken to boot can depend on several items the most common is CPU Speed and available RAM but if the BIOS isn't set correctly this can slow down Boot Speed as well. Also if you have an On Board Video system some of the available system RAM will be dedicated to Video RAM and the CPU will be being used as a GPU so it will be much slower than it should be as well. If this is the case you should check the amount of System RAM Dedicated to the Video and lower it down to an acceptable level something like 16 to 32 MEG but no more and if you are not doing any graphic work it can be lower still.
As far as the request for an install floppy is concerned I would bet that something has not been installed like a Modem Driver or similar and every time you boot it up the New Hardware Wizard is running in an attempt to install the correct drivers for the hardware. You can cancel out of this and go to System Management and see what isn't installed and then find the drivers and possibly program for this device and install the drivers at least from the System Management by right clicking on the device with the yellow circle with the black line through it and then left click on Install Drivers or Upgrade Drivers which could be on a floppy or CD and you can point the install manager to the correct place where the drivers are saved for install.
