Windows XP problem

[Chosonman]

I have 2 Hard drives installed, 1 Maxtor 120GB and a WD 160 GB HD. Recently I plugged a 160GB external HD and downloaded some files and unplugged it while the computer was still running.
I found that since then if I try to access my drives by clicking "My Computer" the window lags and the search icon appears and hangs for a very long time.
Just to see what would happen I plugged the extern HD back in and low and behold the external drives showed up but the internal drives did not. After fiddling around with the hardware manager for a bit the other drives showed up eventually (I don't think my fiddling around with the Hardware manager caused it.)
But now every time I boot and look for my drives it hangs and there's nothing I have thought of that solves this.
Anyone have any thoughts on this problem?

 

[DidlySquat]

I had the same issue, it turns out that if the other drives or partitions are not formatted or partitioned correctly, the disk driver will spend a huge amount of time every time you try to look at them. So just go into disk management and format these partitions. Note that this will wipe out any data on these partitions, so backup first if there is something valuable there.

 

[Chosonman]

Thank you

 

[RebateMonger]

Check your XP System Event Log and see what kind of errors you are getting. You probably have a disk that is having problems being read.