Question Boot time increased abnormally and exponentially

[Priyajit Ghosh]

Hi,
Usually, after pressing the power button, the laptop shows a black page (where they say to press F12 to go boot option) then the HP logo and then windows open up. Recenty, after pressing the power button, the laptop takes 1-2 minutes to show that black page. This is very abnormal as it used to take 5 seconds previously. Please help.

Specs:
CPU: i5 7200U
GPU: r5 m330
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: 512 GB SSD (where OS is installed), 1 TB HDD
OS: Windows 11

After upgrading to Windows 11, everything was okay for at least 3 weeks, so I guess Windows 11 isn't at fault.

 

[JWNoctis]

First, back up your data, just in case.

What's your boot order? Try to disable PXE boot if that's not needed.

If that doesn't help, check the health of both your SSD and HDD, and if those are okay, check your RAM with Memtest86.

If both are okay, reset BIOS settings to factory.

 

[Priyajit Ghosh]

First, back up your data, just in case.

What's your boot order? Try to disable PXE boot if that's not needed.

If that doesn't help, check the health of both your SSD and HDD, and if those are okay, check your RAM with Memtest86.

If both are okay, reset BIOS settings to factory.

Thanks for helping me out. I checked and found out that after pressing the power button, the drive light took really long time to blink. And laptop opened after that drive light started blinking. I am conducting the tests you mentioned here. What to do next? Please help.
Also what is PXE Boot?