Slow boot process in windows xp

The computer in question is a pentium 4 2.6Ghz 512 MB RAM in other words a very good PC.

The problem is that when I boot windows, the first boot screen (the black screen with the Windows xp logo and the blue scrolling bar) stays there forever (5 min.) and there is no activity on the disk during that period. But then, when this has passed, the computer works normally.
I need to know if there is any setting either in the BIOS or in windows that is not setup right.
thanks