Mac mini startup issues

Every time I start up my mini, I get a gray screen w/ a box and a web icon in the middle. When I unplug my ethernet cable, it eventually disapperars and a broken finder folder appears. Then after about 20 sec, the computer starts up. What gives? I checked apple's support site, but wasn't able to find anything.

EDIT: I also reset the PRAM, but that did not fix the problem.

Under System Preferences - Startup Disk, look and make sure that network startup is not highlighted. Sounds like it's trying to do a Network boot. Worth a check.

Thanks, I'll give it a look.