computer problems

[Conservative,]

Okay so 2 days ago I'm on my computer and it has the icon in the corner where normally the standby button is - so I press it and then go off for dinner. I come back and it's turned off - as it should. I then switch my laptop on and it doesn't load up. So I switch it back off, then on again. It then gets onto the first screen when you've switched it off via the power button and says "there was an error last time you started your computer. Would you like to try and fix this?" So I did, and it took me to a screen I've never seen before - which has a grey background and then the troubleshooter looked ancient. I told it to find the problem and then it said it could be fixed by restoring to an earlier setting - so I told it to. I then went away for a bit and came back and it was off, so switched it on, but the problem wasn't fixed, so I went through the troubleshooting again and the next time I turned it on, it seemed to load fine...

until I logged in. It took 20-30 minutes (didn't time it) to load. Every time I've switched my computer on, it's loaded up fine, but then logging in has taken ages since it errored a few days ago.

Any help? It was never like this before. It normally takes 1 minute to log in so I'm confused :S

[matt$]

Create a new user and see how long it takes to log onto that or scan it cause it could be a virus