Mutt,
If during the boot, there's a period of time when the hard disk drive isn't working hard, it could be due to newtork configuration.
Does your laptop have an Ethernet card attached...? If so, and your TCP/IP network setting is configured to obtain an IP address via DHCP, this can cause problems when not connected to the network. Your machine will spend some time (20 - 40 seconds) waiting for a DHCP response and IP address allocation that's never going to appear.
To solve this, either remove the TCP/IP associated with the Ethernet adapter (CAREFUL not to do this on the Dial Up or you'll lose Internet Connectivity), or if you like, just set your IP address to a fixed address of 90.0.0.1 which should cause no harm.
Remember to add TCP/IP or change to automatically acquire IP when connecting to the LAN again or it'll either not work, or cause hassle...!
Cheers,
Aq