Windows 7 - 7 Boot pause

I recently installed Windows 7 64 bit on a new system. When it was originally loaded the sytem only had 2 gigs of memory. The hard drive was intially blank and Seven created the partitions and loaded Windows. On first boot and subsequent boots the load time took almost 2 minutes. I found a setting in bios which was causing the long delay and corrected it. Now the boot time when to about 45 seconds. The POST screen finishes hands off to Windows and the "Starting Windows" screen shows, however I get no hard drive activity during the 45 second pause. Once the hd kicks in and the activity light shows, I get the four Windows colors that come in and the pc boots right up. The computer has since been upgraded with 4 gigs of memory, since I suspected that was the issue. However boot times have not changed. My next step, since I can't figure this out is to move the hd to another sata port and try another reinstall with the 4 gigs of memory in place. I only know the boot times to be a problem since my old system had a first generation sata drive WD Raptor, that booted Seven in less than 15 seconds. I know this new drive is capable, its not a raptor but it is at least sata II. Does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem might be?

Since you suspect it may be related to the RAM, why not do a memory test? Download Memtest86 and some some tests.

Actually I don't think its the ram. I am thinking at this point that it has something to do with either the formatting on the hard drive or, that the motherboard has some funny issue with what port its on. I just wasn't sure if Windows had anything to do with it, being I initially installed with the minimum amount of ram.

Got anything in the DVD or any external devices?

No, no cd, or thumb drives inserted, nor do I have any external hard drives connected. Like I said, its almost like windows is waiting for the drive to initailize instead of just loading. Once it decides to load, its very quick.

I guess it was the ram. I had installed it last night and the system booted the same. However today when I start the machine boot time is normal and loads as it should. I guess the extra 2 gigs had to be established in windows before it was utilized properly.