Long (LOOOOOOONG) delay when starting recording

[yonkiman]

I've searched the forum but can't find anyone else with this problem, which usually means it's either so simple that even an idiot can fix it himself, or no one else has ever had this problem. (In this case I'm hoping I'm an idiot.)

All of the sudden it takes MINUTES between when I hit record and when PT actually starts recording. The hard disk just thrashes for minutes, then recording starts and works fine. This is a real problem for me, since I'm not a 1 take musician/singer (more like 1 thousand takes).

Info:

WinXP, PT5.3.1, 800MHz PIII

It's not hard disk fragmentation - I defragged and had the same problem. Also once it works - no problems, even with a 128byte buffer and lots of tracks. So I've ruled out disk fragmentation.

It used to work, but I didn't use PT for months, meanwhile I was installing software, updating XP, etc - so I can't point to one thing I did that brought the problem on.

Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before?

Thanks,
Fred