I have three partitions on 1 160GB S-ATA drive. On the the last partiton (logical) it takes too long opening a folder with many files. When I change the drive letter from E: to F: or something, the problem is gone. When I assign the drive letter E: to an external HD the same problem occurs. It seems that the prblem is drive letter E: !!! ??? With other letters there is no problem for both disks. There are no network mappings or other devices that need E: So, what's happening here? Why do I have slow acces to a folder only when it's on a drive with letter E: assigned?

Just a guess here; did you previously use a usb device that was assigned 'E'? Example being a card reader or quick drive. Windows keeps in memory that assigned drive, thus it may be confused when E is manually assigned. sLLs

Well, My external HDD is connected with USB, but it couldn't be E: beacause XP installs also the cardreaders first. I have 4 cardreaders. It is, accually, true that one of the cardreaders was assigned to E: and the third partiton to I: (??? why???). I thought this was the problem, so I uninstalled the cardreaders. It didn't help. Maybe I have to remove the cardreaders fysically in order to tell XP they are really gone. I didn't use them though. Still, changing the drive from the ext. HDD (Z:) to E: gives the same problem om this disc...with the same folder! As if theres a problem with the folder. But only on E: not if the drive letter was changed in an other letter, then the problem with this folder was gone...pretty strange I think.

...uhmmm. Problem is gone. Don't know why. Maybe rebooting for the 10th time? Maybe reseting the folder setting for the 16th time...Unfortunately, I couldn't replicate the error, so this is not a lot of help for someone with the same problem. LL, thanks for the reply though. Tinus