Re: C3 running REALLY slowly?!

Hi Ivon,
have you tried opening footage from your laptop's HD? is it the same delay?
Even if your external HD is really fragmented, it shouldn't affect performance that much.
You say that it's a USB 2.0 drive. However, when I look at your specs, I'm guessing (I might be wrong, though) that you only have older USB ports. If the footage loads *a lot* quicker from the HD, it might simply be that the older USB speeds are too slow (I don't have much experience with USB HDs but I know that my little USB memory stick is pretty slow at moving files on a legacy port).
You might want to try updating the mobo's USB drivers (or checking your BIOS settings that concern USB).
I've also read that the thumbnail view in the "import footage" dialog can slow it down a bit. Have you tried importing footage using the "list" view?
To the pros: can your thumbnail cache become corrupt?
This might be way off but I've also heard of video files becoming corrupt when being moved...something about the header becoming corrupt (really not too sure about this one).
Please write down everything that you changed. even the slightest detail like changing the network settings, resetting the router (for your wstation LAN connection), forgetting a bagel on your keyboard...

and don't forget...windows doesn't like it when you unplug USB drives without "stop"ing them first.

good luck,
iso