Mac mini slow to start, not responsive

My late 2010 Mac mini is performing slowly and erratically.
I recently upgraded it to Lion, hoping all the bugs in Lion had been killed.
It doesn't mount my external hard drive, a firewire drive from OWC that is my designated Time Machine drive.
When I tried to create a new folder on another firewire external drive, I got an unexpected error code 50.
I have restarted the machine from the power button and from the apple menu about six times now. Each time the desktop and icons appear after about 2 minutes, but the Mac does not respond to the keyboard or mouse until about 10 minutes after restart.
When I double-click a disk icon, it takes about 5 seconds to open a window.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
-Robin

Some have reported poor performance with Lion in 2GB of memory, and found that upgrading to 4GB fixed their problems. So that may be part of your solution. Memory is cheap now .... Crucial at http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Mac%20mini%20(Intel%20Core%202 %20Duo%202.4GHz)%20DDR3%20-%20Mid%202010&Cat=RAM has a single 4GB memory card for $23 (that would take you to 5GB, 4+1) or two 2GB cards for $30. You can usually find a 5% off online coupon at retailmenot.com and Crucial has free shipping. OWC at http://www.macsales.com has similar prices on their memory.
You can do an SMC and PRAM reset, which may make a difference:
SMC reset:
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait fifteen seconds.
Attach the computer's power cord.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM:
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

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If you use a wireless keyboard, trackpad, or mouse, replace or recharge the batteries. The battery level shown in the Bluetooth menu item may not be accurate.
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Step 10
Reinstall the OS. If the Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Step 11
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Step 12
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