Slowness at start up and a host of other issues

[Joe88]

have your tried the old "msconfig" in the run menu?
to turn off a lot of junk that doesnt need to be started when your comp boots

[BasharOfTheAges]

have your tried the old "msconfig" in the run menu?
to turn off a lot of junk that doesnt need to be started when your comp boots

Yes, I have, and the problem persists intermittently - which leads me to the same conclusion i began with - that it has nothing to do with rogue software, viruses, spyware, adware, hijackers, etc. and is a hardware issue or a corrupt install of Windows.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Of note, CPUfan's analysis of my primary (OS) HDD's health tells me 2 key things

Warning: Start/Stop Count is below the average limits (99-100) - it's reading 66

Warning: Reallocated Event Count is below the average limits (199-200) - it's reading 1

and also of note:
Warning: Spin Retry Count reached, in the past, its threshold. Worst value is 10 and threshold is 51.
This is an unusual situation because it looks like your hard disk, in the past, failed the S.M.A.R.T. status check, but now it appears not to be failing.

[BasharOfTheAges]

also my secondary HDD (media drive, and the drive WoW is currently installed on has these errors, so i'm not 100% sure about the information i'm getting:

NOTE : your hard disk has 741 reallocated sectors (this value is very large and your hard disk should be replaced). Hard disks do have spare sectors (usually from 256 up to 1024) used to replace bad ones. This remapping operation is transparent to the end user. Anyway, this can lead to degradated performances (because remapped sectors are in different places of the disk than the original ones and the head needs additional moving). If reallocated sectors grow over time, you might encounter some serious troubles. A backup of the most important data is suggested anyway.

NOTE : your hard disk has 23 pending sectors. Those are sectors that couldn't be properly read and that the hard disk logic is waiting for a write operation to try to remap to a spare sector (if available). According to the Reallocated Sector Count attribute, your hard disk seems to be either low or out of spare sectors. A simple disk surface scan won't be enough to force the remap operation. You need a read/write surface scan to remap the sector. The best option should be a tool that knows about what should be read from that sector so that it has some option to apply the best fix to the missing data.

NOTE : your hard disk has 319 offline uncorrectable sectors (this value is very large and your hard disk should be replaced). Those are sectors that an offline scanning found as unreadable. Offline scanning is a process that can be automatically started by the hard disk logic when a long enough idle period is detected or that can be forced by some tool. Those unreadable sectors are identified and the hard disk logic is waiting for a write command that will overwrite them to try to remap them to spare sectors (if available). According to the Reallocated Sector Count attribute, your hard disk seems to be either low or out of spare sectors. A simple disk surface scan won't be enough to force the remap operation. You need a read/write surface scan to remap the sector. The best option should be a tool that knows about what should be read from that sector so that it has some option to apply the best fix to the missing data.

[BasharOfTheAges]

gha o.o;; sorry for the 4-post... but that should be "Speedfan"