I would recommend that you remark out the line that mounts that drive in /etc/fstab and reboot to see if it still does that.
Okay, I commented the line out of /etc/fstab and the long delay during the boot process is still there.
So now I'm at a loss to suggest any other recent configuration that I've done that could potentially be the problem.
Without having any other guesses about what is causing the delay, what would be a way to diagnose it?
Dave