Programs crashing when go into sub menus to save as or open (windows 7)

Got a weird problem with W7 at the moment.
When ever i try and open stuff in say for example, cubase, when i navigate to my 3rd storage HDD the browser window freaks out and crashes cubase, does this with photoshop aswell.
Now i can cure this by going to the file in windows explorer and just clicking that to open its parent program, in the most usual case, cubase 5.
But the real problem is the whole Save As thing... I spent about 6 hours making a tune today on cubase, went to save it. Bam. Crashed and lost it.
Extremely annoying and Frankly i just cant figure out why its doing it.
Is it windows 7 being screwy or is my harddrive giving up?

Halp!

 

Hi Sam,

First stop should be the System and Application logs in Windows Management (right-click computer > Manage) and look for any errors etc. around the times when you had the crashes.

 

I have about 10 of these errors:

The program Cubase5.exe version 5.1.0.105 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Action Center control panel.
Process ID: 4724
Start Time: 01cb47e3cd5e137f
Termination Time: 60000
Application Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\Cubase 5\Cubase5.exe
Report Id: b41e1f4c-b3d8-11df-a54e-0021855cf4c4



Mean anything to you?

 

Oh or this:

- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Application Hang" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1002</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>101</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2010-08-30T01:50:01.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>21943</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Samus-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data>Cubase5.exe</Data>
<Data>5.1.0.105</Data>
<Data>4724</Data>
<Data>01cb47e3cd5e137f</Data>
<Data>60000</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\Cubase 5\Cubase5.exe</Data>
<Data>b41e1f4c-b3d8-11df-a54e-0021855cf4c4</Data>
<Binary>55006E006B006E006F0077006E0000000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

I'm not seeing anything there that makes any sense, is everything in Device Manager ok? How about all your Power settings?

 

Everything in device manager is normal but define power settings?

 

Probably best to set the 'High Performance' plan then modify it to ensure that everything connected stays awake, esp. USB, HDD's, etc. It takes a few clicks but it needs checking.

EDIT: Even on High Performance, HDD's are set to power down after 20 minutes, USB 'Selective suspend setting' is enabled. Never and disabled would be my choices.

 

Okay done.
Reckon itll make a difference?

 

Stilll doing it =(