Anyone have this problem?

Finally Dale said what I was thinking after reading all these posts. I would teld to think that your computer is having difficulty reading your cf card also. Try another card before reformatting the one that is giving you trouble and see if it works.

If there is any problem with the CF, Windows wouldn't be able to copy or move the files. If Windows can, it means the file system (FAT 16/32) is compatible. If the files are of incompatble format or corrupted, Windows will not be able to open the file or build a thumbnail preview. The fact that you copied the files and Windows successfully built the thumbnail files point to a problem exists in the PC, not the CF. Check your BIOS, fans, Windows setting again for possible cause.
Regards,
Alan

I don't know all the algorithems of Windows any more (OK, I never did), but XP does have a penchant to try something repeatedly for a while, and then move on to the next task. Previous versions (98, 95, etc.) were more apt to try and then go all blue-screen on us. So it may be reasonable that the computer is encountering a file that is corrupted in an odd way that the computer tries to deal with it and then finally moves on to the next file.

I don't know how to get rid of such a file if there is one. Can you scandisk a CF?

i've only needed to "norton disk doctor" (aka scandisk++) my cf card once. one of the files couldn't be copied because of some "disk error" - that fixed it. it was a RAW file too, so it wasn't one of those "damaged JPEGs" that you see on-line from time to time.

It said one of the sectors was bad (a known issue when you don't format CF cards and just delete files) - re-formatting the card solved the problem.

PS: unless you're using 2G+ card, always format with FAT and not FAT32. FAT 32 makes the camera write to the card slower. dunno why, but it does. don't believe me? do your own test.

does NTFS have anything to do with it? I am on an NTFS file system

NTFS has nothing to do with it. my advice is get a 2nd HD - a 7200 rpm one. partitions are on the same physical drive, so even though your files & your swap are on different drive letters, the HD has to go back and forth on the same drive - causes delay.

BTW, Win XP doesn't ever use more than about 1/4 of ram you got. that ram is used by Photoshop, which come with its own memory management. including its own swap.

Here's how my PC set up:

P4 2.6 overclocked to 3.2Ghz, Multithreading.
1G of DDR 3200 Dual Chanel RAM

3 HD drives:
120 GB 7200 RPM for storage of files
60 GB 7200 RPM for Windows & Programs
250 GB SATA 7200 RPM for swap and additional file storage of RAW files.

AND NEVER LET WINDOWS MANAGE YOUR SWAP FILE. NEVER. set a fixed size of say 500Mb - and you'll be OK.

Here's something not many know:

Your RAM is 1000 slower than your processor, and your HD is 1000 slower than your ram. There fore by getting a faster or 2nd HD for swap you can improve your system's performance a lot. Typicaly 20%.

I do have a 2nd HD, and my swap is on the 2nd drive (7200RPM), this problem has me perplexed. I usually figure these things out but this problem has me down for the count. The problem isnt a life-threatening one, I can still work on the pc, it just causes me to lose some time waiting for the pictures to appear.

Do you have a network?

Often when windows is slow opening a directory, it is because there is something it is looking for that is not there - for example - if you have shares listed in your 'my network places' that are not accessible, of if you have mapped drives, etc., that explorer will wait for those to time out before displaying files. Have you installed any new utilities/programs - sometimes these add extensions to explorer that can do the same thing. Although it might act like it is only camera files, it may not be related.
Just some things to consider....

no nothing. it worled perfectly fine one day and then just stopped working. I am thinking a hardware problem, I am going to get some new RAM and try that first. Maybe my memory is going bad, but what puzzles me is that I dont have a problem with anything else, just with opening folders with pictures in them.

Usually, it's this problem:

http://www.knitwitolog​y.net/pickabar/archive​s/004323.html

Photoshop...