* Disconnect all peripherals while testing (external monitor, printer, mouse, keyboard, hard drives, etc)
* Time booting from the AC adapter into Safemode
* Time booting from the AC adapter into Normal Mode
* Time booting from the battery only into Safemode
* Time booting from the battery only into Normal Mode

Thanks for your Reply Dell-Chris.  I have not tried the above yet but I did run the F12 diagnostic after posting and got this:

Does this provide any useful info?

Possibly having trouble detecting your HDD from some reason therefore delaying boot.

I did run the F12 diagnostic after posting and got this: Does this provide any useful info?

I have seen machines with failing HDDs, take a long time to boot. The Diag screen seems to confirm this.

You can also error check your HDD inside Windows. You should backup your data quick, just in case.

Actually, BEFORE I ran this my boot time dropped to less than 1 minute but I still wasn't able to start Steam.   I decided that if I had to send something in for repairs it was time for drastic measures and start uninstalling things.  So, I started with Command Center.  After this, I tried booting with usb mouse (the only usb peripheral I use) both plugged in and not plugged in.  Both booted relatively quickly.  

Since my first post I have: Run f12 diag, uninstalled command center and run check disk (I don't think I did anything else but I might have forgotten - I am trying to fix my wife's computer as well as my own).  I just did my last reboot and Steam started up.  

The conclusion I came to is that Command Center caused a problem.  The only thing remaining is my recovery drive is not showing up in the computer screen next to C:\ (OS).

***edit*** I just remembered that I also uninstalled Microsoft Essentials Antivirus

I just ran error check and got this information.  References a bad sector and windows replacing clusters:

Level Date and Time Source Event ID Task Category

Information 1/16/2011 10:47:43 AM Microsoft-Windows-Wininit 1001 None "

Checking file system on C:

The type of the file system is NTFS.

Volume label is OS.

A disk check has been scheduled.

Windows will now check the disk.                         

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...

  347648 file records processed.                                         

File verification completed.

  318 large file records processed.                                   

  0 bad file records processed.                                     

  0 EA records processed.                                           

  76 reparse records processed.                                      

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...

  417416 index entries processed.                                        

Index verification completed.

  0 unindexed files scanned.                                        

  0 unindexed files recovered.                                      

CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...

  347648 file SDs/SIDs processed.                                        

Cleaning up 37 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.

Cleaning up 37 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.

Cleaning up 37 unused security descriptors.

Security descriptor verification completed.

  34885 data files processed.                                           

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...

  35201392 USN bytes processed.                                            

Usn Journal verification completed.

CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...

Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x2739a000 for 0x10000 bytes.

Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0x2739f000 for 0x1000 bytes.

Windows replaced bad clusters in file 38315

of name \Windows\winsxs\AMFD62~1.163\tungab.ttf.

  347632 files processed.                                                

File data verification completed.

CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...

  30998066 free clusters processed.                                        

Free space verification is complete.

Adding 1 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters File.

Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.

Windows has made corrections to the file system.

 297169239 KB total disk space.

 172610820 KB in 218456 files.

    108032 KB in 34886 indexes.

         4 KB in bad sectors.

    458119 KB in use by the system.

     65536 KB occupied by the log file.

 123992264 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.

  74292309 total allocation units on disk.

  30998066 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:

00 4e 05 00 aa dd 03 00 fa 0b 07 00 00 00 00 00  .N..............

b9 01 00 00 4c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ....L...........

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

Windows has finished checking your disk.

Please wait while your computer restarts.

"

Now that that's completed, what is the boot time like?

The conclusion I came to is that Command Center caused a problem.  The only thing remaining is my recovery drive is not showing up in the computer screen next to C:\ (OS).

No, sorry ... not that simple. It appears that your drive is failing. After the bad spots developed, Windows tries to do the best it can to recover the files and move them to a good spot (and mark the bad spot as un-usable).

That might be the only bad/weak spot, or it might be signs that the drive is failing.

If you are under warranty, I would get the drive replaced with a new one (new, not refurb). Whether, you replace it or run with this one, you really need to:

- Reformat the whole drive with NTFS (long format). This will mark bad spots as unusable before loading Windows.
- Check with Dell Diags or other HDD confidence test.
- Reload Windows, drivers, and apps from scratch

Either way, you will lose your Recovery partition ... so after you get it working I would make a full Image backup (using Windows or Acronis).

They will probably send a technician out with a HDD and replace it.

Yeah, I thought I was being overly optimistic.  I guess I will look into getting it replaced.  Will I have to ship them the laptop or will they send me a drive to install myself?

I agree with Tesla, do a clean wipe and reinstall everything from scratch. BUT if your under warranty and get the drive replaced good luck getting a new one. They have lied to me on two different occasions saying a replacement part was new. They package them like new but they were not new, pretty slick. Most people cannot tell so they think its OK apparently.

Well, I have all of my game saves backed up already so I should be good there.  Thanks for all the help!

There is no doubt that if the machine is still under warranty you should get a new drive.
If it isn't, there is a little known app called SpinRite 6 that runs either off a floppy or from a USB drive. It scans damaged sectors and recovers lost data. Programming stopped during Windows XP back in 2004 however, I have used it successfully on both Vista 32 bit and 7 64 bit. It's one of those tools I find absolutely indispensable as it has gotten both myself and my son out of trouble on numerous occasions. The reason it still works is because it operates using MS-DOS on any FAT32, NTFS, or Linux formatted drive.

I should warn that it can take a long time to do a full repair. On a 500 GB drive it took 2 days but this particular drive was in a really bad state. Explorer could view most of its contents but it was impossible to transfer or copy data from it. After repairs ALL data was visible, fully usable, and the drive gets a perfect health bill from chkdsk.

It is also used to maintain the drive/s in good health so you can run it once a month if you wish. Personally, I run it once every 3 months. This video will show you exactly how it works.

I used to hear about it on the TWiT network alot.  Good to keep in mind.

Also, if a Technician comes out to replace it.  Will it be formatted or no matter what, I should format it and reinstall everything?  Just to be clear.