I have almost the exact same issue. I asked about it last weekdo not have USB ports recognized as new drives, but it turns out I do have a network drive that is currently down but still appears as a lettered device on my question was closed for being off-topicmachine.
What additional information can we gather that will help get an answer QGIS was hanging while trying to connect to this question?remote drive that is not responding. I disconnected my network, and QGIS launched immediately. I then went into the browser and told QGIS to ignore the failed drive. Problem is now resolved and QGIS boots normally.