From: pemmons3@verizon.net   
      
   Yesterday I experienced many troubling delays in directory queries of an   
   external drive, both on the command line and in the windows that came up   
   with various programs allowing the selection of a file.  In the latter   
   case, I would usually see merely a cursor, with the hourglass flashing   
   briefly every few seconds.  The list of files might require thirty seconds   
   to appear.  Windows task manager showed low CPU use, and there was no heavy   
   reading or writing on the drive in question (or any others).  I was   
   baffled: was the drive failing? (Everything else seemed fine).  Was I hit   
   by a virus?   
      
   Sometimes receiving and showing keyboard input in the command-prompt window   
   was also  disturbingly sluggish.   
      
   Today everything is, happily, back to normal.  But I am still puzzled.   
   Because I am backing up another large external drive, I'd expect   
   performance to be worse rather than better, but these requests are nice and   
   snappy as usual.   
      
   Does anyone have suggestions as to what might have been happening   
   yesterday?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)