Massive boot delay after altering partition layout

I recently reformatted my Vista install because boot time started to take a very long time (went from an average of seeing the green bar go by 8 times to around 40). I couldn't figure out why this had happened before I reformatted and I just assumed it had something to do with having personal programs being started at boot time and maybe a hint of fragmentation.

In a previous thread I had this similar problem occur after I had defragmented using 3rd party applications. (for the record, I have used a different defragmenter on every reformat I've done and I've had this problem with PerfectDisk, Diskeeper, and O&O. And as suggested by someone in this thread, Vista never rebuilt its 'tracing files' even after a year of keeping that install.)

Anyway after I had reformatted and installed all of my applications, boot time stayed at around 9 green bars, so I ignored my theory about applications slowing down my boot time. I then tried defragmenting with Vista's defrag.exe using 'defrag c: -w -v' and boot time increased by about 1 or 2 green bars, so no big deal.

I then decided I would try out Windows 7 and reinstall BackTrack and seeing as I already had 3 primary partitions I created an extended partition with a logical NTFS and ext3 partition. As soon as I rebooted after making these changes boot time jumped back up to around 40 bars passing by like my previous install and hasn't gone down since.

I had a feeling that this would end up happening so after I had reformatted, I installed all updates and then created a compressed image of my Vista partition using Partimage (it only makes an image of the used space). So at least if I decided to 'reformat' I could just restore the image and I wouldn't have to sit through the Windows install screens and reinstall service packs and other updates.

I doubt there's a fix for this so I'm posting this as more of a discussion; has anyone else had similar experiences?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire 5630
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz 65nm 667MHz FSB 2MB L2
    Motherboard
    Acer Grapevine Intel i945GM Chipset
    Memory
    2x1GB DDR2 333MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Intel Integrated GMA 950 256MB
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite LCD 16ms
    Screen Resolution
    1280x800
    Hard Drives
    200GB 5400rpm Toshiba MK2035GSS ATA-7, 250GB 7200rpm Maxtor External USB Hard Drive
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