Here's a problem I've been having for a while. Computer is as follows: Homebrew system with Abit BH6, Celeron 1.4GHz running at 1356MHZ (so slightly underclocked), Matrox G200 AGP, onboard IDE interface, 384Mb RAM. Primary IDE channel is 120 gig Maxtor ST3120026A as master (logical drives C, E-I), Memorex 16X-DDL dvd/rom slave, secondary is Sony DRU-510A master, another identical Maxtor drive as slave (logical drives D and J). Occasionally I connect various external drives via USB (the onboard USB is 1.0, so I installed a USB2.0 card so as not to have to sit and watch my hair grow whilst copying files.) OS is Win98SE, using the shell from Win95 swapped in by 98Lite, back when it still called itself that. If I've left out any vital information, let me know and I'll post it. Now the problem. When the system tries to manipulate really large files, such as copying them from one place to another, or when compacting the databases in Forte Agent, etc., it goes slower and slower, and eventually hangs altogether. It does the same thing if you try to move a large number of smaller files at the same time. [1] Once it hangs, if you do the "three finger salute", sometimes you get the Close Program dialog, but if you try to close stuff it freezes at that point; sometimes it waits for a while and gives you the blue "Warning! The system is either busy or has become unstable", etc., and sometimes it doesn't even get that far and needs the hard reset button. It doesn't seem to make any difference whether it's from one drive to another, internal drive to external, or even within the same drive and directory (e.g. the Agent thing). [1] By "move files" I mean actually copying the data, not simply rewriting the FAT to point to a new directory. So if I move files within one drive, it's fine, but if it has to go to a different partition it hangs. I did notice that if I copy files one at a time, it's less likely to hang than if I select a whole bunch and copy them together. Does anybody have a suggestion as to what causes this and/or what to do about it? Thanks in advance. Shalom