Windows Explorer crashes when opening items on the desktop

[Guest]

I'm running XP Pro SP2.

Almost every time I try to open a folder or shortcut on my desktop, there's
a long pause (on the order of five seconds or so), followed by Windows
Explorer crashing. When it crashes, it does so without an error message.
Sometimes, it even fails to reload itself and I must manually reload
explorer.exe via the task manager.

I had this problem a few months ago, but it seemed to resolve itself when I
removed a large file (upwards of 75MB) from my desktop. However, I have no
such files on it now, all folders of significant size have been replaced with
shortcuts, and all unnecessary files have been cleaned up.

Restarting has not fixed the issue, and it seems to come and go.

What is causing this?

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Try Error Checking the drive. Rightclick drive icon, Properties, Tools tab.

 

[Guest]

I just tried that, but the problem persists.

Try Error Checking the drive. Rightclick drive icon, Properties, Tools tab.