Windows Explorer and My Computer freeze whenever I open them

[evolart]

If I open windows explorer or my computer that window freezes up and everything inside it becomes white. Occasionally after a long period of time I can see my drives and can click things but it is very very slow.

I have checked for viruses with more than one program and cleaned all spyware off of the computer. I have also ran check disk and defragged recently. I also ran system file checker and I still have the problem. My last try will be to do a repair install of windows, but I was hoping someone here might know of a way to fix this issue.

P4 2.4 533
1.5GB PC2100
Windows XP Pro SP2 (Fully Updated)

 

[daxon]

Having the same problem here. Even reformatted/reinstalled Windows and still having the problem.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Did you also re-install all the motherboard-drivers again (on your mobo-CD)?

 

[daxon]

No, I didn't install the mobo drivers from the CD, just used the latest nForce drivers (nForce2 chipset).

To me it seems like it's a hard drive issue. Anytime the system hangs when trying to open My Computer, the hard drive LED light is on pretty much constantly, blinking off on occasion.

Another odd thing is that I can open up Explorer without any hang if I use a method other than My Computer, i.e., enter a path in Run (c:\program files), etc.

 

[evolart]

I found out what my problem was....I found it on accident too. I had an old cd writer in my computer, I unhooked this drive during some upgrades and noticed that my computer and windows explorer no longer froze up!

I even plugged it back in to test and sure enough it was the drive. I removed this extra cd writer and now have no problems!

 

[daxon]

LOL, funny you should say that. Since it only seemed to happen when Windows was trying to display all the drives, (e.g., My Computer), I figured it had to be a problem with one of them.

Turns out it was my DVD-RW drive. But it wasn't even actually the drive, which appears to be fine. There was a DVD-RW disc in the drive that causes the problem. Any other disc and everything works fine. Apparently that certain disc has some problems and Windows takes forever trying to read the disk, thus the hanging.

 

[evolart]

Weird stuff....glad it's fixed for you...it was annoying as hell, i know

 

[Prairie Hawk]

DVD drive in first series of CD/DVD drives was Culprit

I'm glad I found this forum. Evolart has it right. I have a DVD, DVD-R, CD and CD-R series of 4 drives. Through a process of elimination (disconnencting and reconnecting) I found the first drive which is in the boot sequence was the source of this Windows headache. I did notice before that it seem to have excessive activity during the boot sequence.

Thanks People! :grinthumb