I've finally gotten rid of vista beta 2 and good riddence so instead download the rc1 build its so much better all the application work finally! i'm all set for going back to uni. one thing though which i've noticed is on start up the hdd start loading normally for about a minute then suddenly stops for about 4 minutes no hdd activity what so ever! then it resumes at about 5.44 minutes and finally the whole process of loading the os finishes at about 7 mintutes in computer times this is very annoying time to wait!!! just wondering if any body else has exprienced these problems with rc1? or if its a common issue?

This sounds like a broken driver or windows component.

Have you ensured all your drivers are up to date? All Vista drivers are still beta