What's hogging my machine for so long on startup?

When I power on my laptop, it takes about 14 seconds to go from splash screen to desktop. But then it takes about 3 minutes before I can do anything. By that I mean the "hard drive status light" stays solid green or flickers very rapidly as to appear almost a solid green. This usually means that something is reading or writing data, no? As long as the status light is lit, I can move my cursor around the screen but I can't access any of the shortcuts, start button, etc. I can't even access task manager or process explorer to find out what's using up my CPU. I suspect it's my antivirus and/orantispyware checking for automatic updates but by the time I CAN access TM or PE, the offending program has completed whatever it was doing and System Idle Process is showing 99%.
Any ideas on how I can force open TM or PE under those circumstances to verify what that resource hog really is?

Hmmmm might be an idea to post a " hijack this" log ...

Just a thought.... will TM open in safe mode?

I wouldn't have any idea. You might want to ask at this site - http://www.cpurigs.com/forums/index.php

BTW, I've removed your spammy signature links ;)

Disable Services you don't use mayhaps, but most likely I'd start with defragging your hard drive, too many fragmented files can cause it to spin it's wheels a lot as it puts things back together. Also make sure you have plenty of free space on C:\

Ya know, assuming the original post isn't spam in and of itself :)

~Surreal