XP beyond slow

I'm running Windows XP SP3 (WinNT 5.01.2600) On startup it sometimes takes 5 minutes before the hard drive stops running. Frequently, it will start up again and run for minutes. Memory sometimes peaks for minutes at a time, but it appears that System Idle is the primary user. I've downloaded 'Hijack This' and have the log and startfiles, but need some help with where to upload them for evaluation; this forum seemed like a good place to start. Thanks in advance.

Follow these instructions to post in the Malware Removal forum.
http://forums.whatthetech.com/you_Infected_t106388.html

Thanks - I'm on it.

Hello, actually to repair a slow computer, you should perform quite a lot maintenance tasks regularly. 1. Defragment your system disk once a month. 2. Remove unneeded programs to release more hard drive space for the system. 3. Cleanup Windows registry errors to fix and avoid system problems. 4. Disable unnecessary programs on the startup. 5. Terminate unuseful WIndows services on your computer.

It is very important to back up your registry before doing anything with it as messing around with the registry can render your machine inoperable.