I have a Toshiba Satellite M40(60 G.B 4200 RPM hard drive and USB-2) with Win Xp SP2.Few days ago I purchased a 250 G.B USB-2 external Hard Drive and when I connected this drive to my laptop and try to transfer data my laptop transfered data at very low speed( 1 G.B data took about 9 minutes) after that I noticed that my laptop also become slower specially when I start my computer now it take almost 4 times to start as compare to earlier.Now no matter my external drive connected to my laptop or not laptop behaves like this.Even when I try to transfer data to my IPOD it also transfer at the same low speed(1 G.B= 9 minutes).One more thing now data transfer from CF card through USB card reader also very slow, earlier it was ok.So what,s the problem please help me finding out the problem.