[Ti] Lengthy Startup Time

[Wilcox, Jeffrey S. LCDR (VFA37)]

Hi all,

Over the past couple days I've noticed that my Ti Book is taking a lot
longer to complete it's startup sequence.  Everything works fine until my
desktop picture comes up.  I get the spinning beach ball for a good 3-5
minutes before the finder will startup with the menu bar, desktop items, and
mounted volumes displayed.  The hard drive sounds like it's working
furiously during the beachball's presence.

I haven't loaded any new software within the last 2 months or so.  Also, I
repaired the disk permissions, rebuilt the drive's directory and de-fragged
it wih Techtool pro.  One interesting tidbit is that Disk Utility says it's
mount point is "/" rather than "volumes/....." like my external drive.  The
SMART features say the drive is "failing" which has me obviously concerned.

Barring any suggestions you may have, I may wind up backing up the hard
drive and reformatting it.

Thanks in advance,
Jeff