Vista - weird boot up problems

AMD phenom 9850 quad core
4 gig mushkin 1066 ram
MSI k9a2 platinum
2x sapphire radeon hd 3870 in crossfire

i put this computer together a few months ago and have strange hangs during boot before and after the windows load screen. The computer rips through the bios screens and then hangs on a black screen for about 40 seconds before showing the windows loading screen. When the windows screen finally shows it only takes about 3 green bars before the screen turns black again for another 40 seconds and then shows the account selection. I have no idea why it is hanging at first i though it was the old monitor it was hooked up to which makes clicking sounds before and after the hangs. The machine is also hooked up to a 42" 1080p vizio lcd tv and removing the monitor completely did not solve the problem. can anyone help?

Hi mordin,

Have you tried a startup repair?

System Recovery Options

im guessing you got quick boot in the bios setting correct??
also check your boot sequence
put your hdd first...

well quickboot is turned on and i do have my hdd is first on the boot list. I also tried to boot repair and found another weird problem. I used the same vista 64 bit dvd to try the repair and the repair said i was trying to fix an incompatible version of windows.